Hero Like Me
by Echo Vanity
Summary: Drarry Eating disorder fic   "He's lost everything. But unlike them he never really had anything to begin with... And maybe when he's skinny enough his ghosts won't be trapped in his bones..."
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**

So this is the companion peice to my other fic "Follow Me Down". It doesn't really matter if you read it or not for now, because thiss is more the prequel chap. If you keep reading it, you might want to. It's Harry's perspective, and there will be Drarry. That means slash. So don't like, don't bother reading. There will be angst and some very dark themes, especially later on. This is not a happy fic. So again, if you can't cope with that do NOT read. Also, please leave constructive reviews. I'm not very confident with this fic and wrote it really quickly, so let me know how I can improve. xoxo Echo :)

*Trigger warning* especially for later chapters. There will be triggers for ana, mia and self harm. I know this because I triggered myself accidentally. Please keep that in mind.

**The brilliant J.K Rowling owns all, thankfully. If I'd written them, they would not be available for kids or the general public to read.**

**Chapter One: Your Bones Are The Cage**

He's not entirely sure when this started. It could have been yesterday or years ago. The days and years blur in his mind 'til sometimes he can't tell when he was living with the Dursley's apart from living at Hogwarts. 'Til Vernon and Dumbledore, Hermione and Petunia and his parents and the Malfoy's all blur and congeal together and they share each other's facial features and speak in each other's tongues and in his head there is a constant hissing and all it's saying is

_You_

_Will_

_Never_

_Be_

_Enough_

He wishes it would stop. He can't sleep. And though he doesn't want to, he knows he must. There's something he's got to do, something important and in his head someone's laughing, high and cold and maniacal-

And it worries him that that is the lullaby that sends him to sleep.

And then suddenly the war is over and he's done all he was ever meant to do and he's staring at the twisted snake-like corpse with the incandescent fury the desperate burning _life _in it's eyes gone. He killed it. And though he knows he never said the words

_Avada_

_Kedavra_

That beautiful green light never once left his wand

He was thinking it.

He's the worst kind of

_Coward_.

And they're all congratulating him and there's so many people squashing him pressing in trying to get a taste of the Hero the Hero the Boy Who Killed and he knows he's skinny but he's wishing he was skinnier because then he could slip through the crowd like smoke like wind like a secret like a dream- and then he remembers he knows how to be invisible and he flees.

He sees Ginny considers briefly going to her because after all, he loves her, doesn't he?

Does he?

There's something missing in her eyes now, some blazing passion

Dead

She looks lost. Broken. Like she's just lost the love of her-

And he knows now. He finally fucking _gets it._

What she saw in him

And he in her.

That beloved taint that beautiful monstrous poison that they recognized in the other. That they loved in the other.

And Harry just killed their poisoner.

And he would laugh but it's tragic. It's so fucking tragic.

The story books got it wrong, he thinks. This isn't a fucking happy ending. Even the Wicked Witch was loved by someone had to be loved by _someone_ and how can this be a happy ending when George is looking like half a man because Fred is gone

And Teddy Lupin is an orphan just like Harry

And Snape and Dumbledore and Hedwig and Dobby and Mad Eye and Sirius and his parents and all those names he does not know and oh God that's Collin and Tom Riddle and a part of himself

They're

All

Dead.

And it's all his fault.

The snake is hissing in his head but it's a different tune

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

He sees Ron holding Hermione as she weeps and he knows he could go to them. After all isn't that what best friends are for? But he stays away. Doesn't want to interfere, intrude on their grief. They've done enough for him.

So he decides to make his way to the second floor bathroom. He doesn't know why but he thinks he may be seeking solace in the memories. Not only his, but Ginny's and Riddle's and Malfoy's-

And think of the devil and the devil doth appear. Lucius and Narcissa and Draco all together sitting warily among the victors. They look shell shocked. Draco's eyes look like glass. Like ice. His collar bone is sticking out and it looks sharp enough to cut. And Harry can see his hands are shaking, trembling like the last autumn leaf in the winter breeze. And there's a burning ache in his chest for what might have been for the two lost boys and he has never envied Malfoy- Draco more than he does now. Cocooned in the safety shelter warmth love home of his parents arms.

He was wrong about the Malfoy's, he realizes. Wrong wrong wrong

Narcissa betrayed the Dark Lord, saved Harry's life

To save her son.

And Lily died for Harry and maybe all a parent ever wants is what's best for their child and wouldn't you want your child to be on the winning side?

Draco's spine is visible through his tattered silk shirt and his blonde hair gleams like white hot metal through the blood and sweat and dirt and his eyes are mercury and Harry yearns.

And the bathroom is empty but for the ghosts Harry carries in his head and suddenly he remembers how to breathe.

Time passes and the world rejoices and Harry attends every funeral every memorial service even if he doesn't know their names. It's his penance.

And though the families of the deceased always come up to him, to thank him and congratulate him, to tell him that so-and-so would've been so _happy_ he was there, he knows the truth- he can see the judgment and condemnation in their grief stricken eyes. They hate him as much as they love him and he can live with that. Has to live with that. After all he's a hero, isn't he? Isn't this the way the story goes?

He doesn't remember making a conscious decision not to eat. But he knows he was always careful with what he ate.

Always fearful of eating too much

Taking that which he didn't deserve.

And he knows enough to know that that stems from his a-b-u-s-e.

At least that's what Hermione called it when he told her about the Dursley's but he knows that's she's wrong. He's read about a-b-u-s-e victims. They're all cowed and subservient and cringing- like Wormtail.

And he was always the biggest dick possible to the Dursley's. And he's a Hero and the storybooks never have a-b-u-s-e victims as their Hero's.

And anyway he hates that word-

V

I

C

T

I

M

It sounds so pitiable.

Like he's some poor little puppy at the pound covered in scars and wagging it's tail begging "take me home, take me home" a sweet little black puppy with massive paws and-

Here he has to stop. Because he's missing Sirius again and that's not allowed. How dare he think of his losses when the rest of the world is mourning. How dare he believe his grief is comparable to theirs. He's lost everything.

But unlike them he never really had anything to begin with.

And everything is fleeting.

There's a pressure an ache underneath his skin and he hasn't slept in a week and there's something missing in his head and when he closes his eyes there's no comforting familiar flash of green _avada kedavra _light the same colour as his mother's eyes and there's no lullaby laughter.

Instead there are train stations and the staring eyes of Fred Weasley, still laughing or it's Ginny's devastated face he sees or Cedric's body tossed like a rag doll- the first victim of the Second War and oh God he wants to needs to sleep why can't they leave him alone?

And that's a selfish thought he's a

_Murderer_

_Monster_

He doesn't deserve to sleep to eat to forget.

Harry Potter

Hero

Boy Who Lived To Kill

(And To Die).

He thought killing the Horcrux inside of himself was meant to kill the Slytherin the Voldemort parts of him.

Harry still hears Parseltongue in his head. He thinks he's being haunted and he hopes he is.

Because the alternative

That maybe it was Harry who died and not Voldemort

Doesn't bear thinking about.

And he's all alone in Grimmauld Place and though Ron and Hermione and the Weasley's and Andromeda and Teddy and the entire fucking world visit him daily-

At night he's all alone

And his ghosts come out of his skull to play and though he _knows_ they're not real

Sometimes he forgets.

And he doesn't eat doesn't want to eat and he doesn't know why but he is skinnier now than he has ever been and this is something he knows how to do. Not eating is easy. Far easier than that thing called

Living.

And maybe when he's skinny enough his ghosts won't be trapped in his bones and then they can fade away and then finally he'll be invisible

And maybe without all those eyes staring condemning demanding

He'll be free.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**

I got Harry's height off an interview where Daniel Radcliffe said he was 5'5''. I apologise if that is incorrect. In terms of his weight, I referred to a website which said that for a small framed 5'5'' male, the ideal weight was 134-140 pounds. Again, apologies if this is incorrect. As a female, I know about height/weight for girls but I'm not familiar with male measurements. Also, I'm used to weight being measured in kilograms, so this system is confusing. If I got it wrong, let me know and I'll adjust it. :) Just a massive favour...if you read, could you please review? It's really disheartening seeing that blah blah amount of people visited this fic but only one awesome person reviewed. Sorry, I'm being a whiny writer, but it only takes a second and we all love reviews :)

*Trigger warning for mia and ana sufferers*

*Slash warning, adult themes yada yada*

**J.K Rowling owns anything that may seem familiar. I'm just being mean to the characters. (Title from "Faster" Manic Street Preachers. Just cause)**

**Chapter Two: The Virgin, The Tattered And The Torn**

Harry Potter is

5'5"

And weighs 125 pounds.

And he knows maybe this isn't quite

Right

And maybe he should eat today

But he's always been skinny for his age and height and

People are still staring- when will they fucking _stop staring_?

and no one's noticed his weight so maybe it doesn't matter anyway.

He thinks he'd like to 115. A nice number. Not too dangerous. It's a number that tastes

Thin

It tastes like smoke and sweat and blood and tears

And

1

1

5

Will kill the monsters kill the stares and then he'll stop.

10 more pounds and then he'll stop.

And Harry goes back to Hogwarts, because Hermione says he should- "To further your chances of a good career, for the sake of your learning, because if you waste this opportunity you are an idiot!"

because Ron says he should- "We did miss out on our last year, mate and it's meant to be the best even with the exams. And no one in my family has finished since Percy, and it won't be the same without you mate. And besides, Ginny will be in our year now. Guess that'd make you happy..."

(Harry and Ginny, who Ron, and the world, still think are together; who do not speak, though they often sit together, in

Total

Absolute

Perfect

Silence.

She knows he knows about her feelings for Tom Riddle.

He knows she knows he hasn't eaten a thing in 75 hours and counting.

He knows she won't say a word to anyone, even though it may very well kill him. Part of her wants that.

She knows he knows part of her hates him now.

He knows she knows a part of him hates her too.

The parts that loved Riddle. That never expected victory

Not for them.

And victory is such a hollow word.

They sit in silence. Momentarily allowed to hate the world and

Hate each other.

It brings a kind of peace.)

And so Harry dresses in the black and red and gold and realises for the first time

They're not really his colours.

They make his face look all tired and washed out, his mother's eyes in his father's face all dull and lifeless.

122 and counting down. Back in a dorm and still so alone.

So it's

1000 crunches

900 leg lifts

800 squats

700 star jumps

500 push ups

10 cups of coffee and

10 laps round the lake

5 Pepper Up Potions

And there's 24 hours in a day to do it all.

It's so easy. Once you stop sleeping, stop eating

There are just so many hours to fill.

14 calories in each cup of coffee.

120 calories in the 3 spoons of yoghurt he has for breakfast.

42 calories in the peeled apple he slices into 16ths for lunch.

2 calories in the pile of lettuce he carefully hides his mashed potato roast beef and gravy under for dinner.

He's never trusted exercise to burn it all, but he trusts the Weight spells he uses before and after every meal and every work out and the numbers are trickling

Down

Down

Down

And that's all that matters.

The snake's still murmuring in his head but it approves.

_Good_

_Obedient_

_Little_

_Murderer_

_You will never be good enough_

_But at least you are trying._

_100 more crunches and I will let you sleep._

_500 more and I will stop the nightmares._

_500 more and 3 laps running round the lake barefoot and I'll let you dream of **him-**_

_Let you wake up sticky and sated-_

He never quite makes it to that, passing out at 499 and waking to the cold light of dawn.

But he can dream while awake.

Picture a coat hanger collar bone and a sarcastic smirk,

A drawling voice and an elegant long fingered smooth white hand instead of his own patchily tanned callused one. Can picture soft, pink lips- not his own, all broken and bloody from biting down the urge to eat to scream. Harry would like to make that pretty smirking mouth _moan _as he uses his own mouth to administer the most gentle of torturous attentions-

And he's cum and though his heart is pumping a million miles an hour, though he would never admit even under Veritaserum whose face he pictured whose name he just whispered in the cold cold light of dawn-

He is sated.

He aches and yearns but it is his heart

Not his belly and he makes it another 29 hours without touching a morsel for the picture of a pretty pink mouth and an aristocrat's hands.

Harry is not sure when this started. This dawn-fantasy-hands-mouth-moan-beg-please-

Began.

All he knows is one day Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater who was to be followed due to his

Nefarious

Dastardly

Treacherous

Degenerate

Death Eaterly activities

And the next Harry is staring at him at meal times enraptured by the sight of that fairy floss coloured mouth as it sucks licks chews swallows

Lick lick lick suck _bites_

Mashed potato

Treacle tart

Roast beef

Honeyed ham

Whipped cream

Banana custard

Chocolate gateau-

Draco's mouth must taste like Heaven.

Harry Potter weighs 119 pounds and it's taking too long why is it taking so fucking long?

And the ghosts in his bones are laughing laughing mocking him safe in their buried cocoons.

_It's warm in your_ _marrow_ they seem to murmur

_Warm despite the November chill and we do not want to leave._

_You killed us once_

_And now your trying to do it again._

_Harry_

_Harry_

_Harry_

_You will not kill us again._

So he makes it

20 laps around the lake and

12 coffees and

6 Pepper Ups and

2000 crunches plus his other exercises.

And he's drinking gallons of water trying to flush out the fatty clinging poisons from his body but it's not working nothing is working he's sitting on 118.5 and he hasn't eaten in a week and he can't walk and he remembers someone saying apple cider vinegar helps your metabolism

So he chugs down a goblet of it and adds a tablespoon of chilli to the mix because apparently it's meant to help and then he throws up and it

_Burns_

118.3.

And he's so fucking hungry.

And he can feel his muscles

Eating themselves

And he's shaking like a newborn foal.

And it seems insane to him to think, remember that he once

Flew on a broomstick

Chased Draco and Snape as they fled into the night

That he once killed the most evil and powerful wizard who ever lived.

He can barely stand.

And something's gotta give.

And then somehow he's shoving food down his throat so fast he doesn't taste it, can't distinguish what he's eating. Anything. Everything.

Chocolate frogs and

Pumpkin pasties and

Ice cream and

Treacle tart and

Rice pudding and

Roast beef and

Doorstop sized slices of bread slathered in butter and jam and

Gallons of pumpkin juice and

A mountain of mashed potato with sour cream

And on and on and on.

It's only when he's smelling fish and realises he is sitting on the kitchen floor at 3a.m eating kippers like they're all he's ever wanted that Harry realises what the fuck it is that he's doing.

How many calories has he just consumed? 3000? 4000? 10,000? 100,000,000?

It doesn't even matter because it's

All

Too

Much

And he's never felt so full or sick or disgusted or terrified in his entire fucking life and oh Gods those calories are poisoning his bloodstream and if he lets them live they will feed his ghosts and he will weigh 300 pounds and he will never ever ever be free.

He bends over the icy white porcelain and wonders what it is with him and bathrooms.

Moaning Myrtle hovers above him, watching with a perverse fascination. She tells him he's doing it wrong when he sticks his fingers as far down his throat as possible and his gag reflex doesn't even twitch. He glares at her and tries again but nothing happens and Myrtle's giggling staring up at him now from the toilet bowl.

It's funny, fucking funny he thinks and even his inner voice sounds panicked, that he can puke up vinegar- something he wants to keep in- and he can't puke up that which he fucking needs to

Get

The

Fuck

OUT!

And then it hits him and he thrusts his wand down his throat

Mutters a conjuring spell

And shoves vinegar down his oesophagus.

And then he's puking, puking, puking for England and Myrtle squeals as his vomit plops down onto her pearly face and he's never been so relieved as he feels his stomach muscles clenching his throat constricting as his eyes water and his mouth burns- he hasn't fed the ghosts.

117.7 pounds.

And it's enough, for today.

Because

1

1

5

Is suddenly very close

And he said he was going to stop-

How does he stop?

He doesn't want to stop.

110 maybe.

Yes, that's safe.

Then the ghosts will be dead, for good, forever.

And he can hold onto this for 7.7 pounds longer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**

I apologise in advance for this chapter. It's kind of a filler/catlyst chapter. If this story seems slow moving, I'm sorry. It's just how it's coming out in my head and I have no control over what my hands type. Next chapter THERE WILL BE DRARRY! PROMMMIIISSEE! And I'm looking forward to that. However this chapter unlike the last two isn't all doom and gloom. It has happy fits! So, yay! A massive shout out to **LukeAndLorelai Brucas Fan **because she has reviwed every chapter of this fic and that's awesome! Again I do my whiny writer thing and ask you to pleaase review! If there's something you love or hate or I fuck up majorly TELL ME! And this story is still being written...you can change the ending..

**Trigger warnings as always.**

**The insanely talented J.K Rowling owns all and she would hate me for the things I do to her characters...**

**(Title from Manic Street Preachers "4st 7lbs" which is fucking amazing!)**

**Chapter 3:**** Want To Walk In The Snow And Not Soil It's Purity**

It is December and Christmas is in one short week and Harry has to lose 3 pounds in that short space of time or he won't be allowed any Christmas pudding.

And if he doesn't eat pudding people might talk and Molly would get that look in her eyes like "If you were my son…" and Harry will feel guilty for being oh so thankful he is not.

Harry is currently in a period of triumphant weight-loss and in three short weeks he has gone down from a loathed 117.7 to

A _glorious_

1

1

1

and it's all so easy and he even managed to get 5 hours of

Beautiful

Natural

Dreamless

Sleep.

But Christmas and Molly's triumphant turkeys and glistening piles of golden roast potato's and magnificent fruit cake and the trifle and the honey baked ham and the sweet baby peas slathered in butter and the fresh baked bread and the endless piles of chocolate and candy and a thousand other things his tortured frenzied starving mind is far too terrified to comprehend

Could threaten destroy annihilate

Everything.

And now he's dreaming again as the count down continues

Only he doesn't see Fred or Dumbledore or his parents.

He sees piles of potato's dripping with cream oozing persistently towards him and he wants to run but his feet are glued to the floor with a sickly concoction of treacle and marmalade and then suddenly he is in a vortex in space and there's a wormhole only it turns into a pizza and he's hurtling towards it at the speed of light and his wand is clutched too too tight in his sweaty suddenly meaty fist but it's a Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes gag wand and it's turning into a roast chicken in his hand and he's going to crash into the pizza it's going to swallow him whole-!

And then he wakes as sweaty and terrified as if it was Voldemort he dreamt of and not high-calorie foods, and his empty stomach aches and he has to run his fingers across it to make sure it is still as flat as when he went to sleep. And he only breathes again when his questing fingers find that it is indeed so.

In the deepest darkest 4.00 a.m. silence

Harry traces his callused fingers across his protruding ribs and examines the curve of his wrist bone in the faint moonlight and wonders what Draco

(because he's had his name on his lips too many times to pretend it's not him he so desperately wants)

Would think if he could see them.

He wonders if Draco has ever lain awake in bed wishing he could step out of the fleshy cage of his body and be invisible-be _free._

He traces his fingers across his scar and yearns for something long forgotten, something he cannot name. A sense of home, familiarity, safety, wholeness.

He wonders what scars Draco bears from the war and if he'll ever be allowed to know.

And as icy tears streak down the cavernous wasteland of his cheeks and he digs his fingers into the flesh of his stomach, he wonders whether Draco cries for the thought of what might have been.

4 days til Christmas and 2 days til he leaves for the Burrow and Harry knows something is wrong

And everything is finally right.

1

0

8

And close enough to taste his goal (even though he's not quite sure what that is anymore)

And when he closes his eyes the ghosts do not come out to play and his mind is lit with the familiar flash of Lily-eyed green and the lullaby laughter of a dead man dead monster and the snake hisses

_I'm_

_Almost_

_Proud_

_Don't you dare fuck it up._

And he sees a pair of quicksilver eyes gazing at him in wonder

And he realises its not a fantasy but a memory

He hadn't realised he'd made.

Harry dreams and it tastes like ashes and honey and blood and he wakes refreshed

And eats, for the first time in 9 days, what is his first proper meal in 2 months.

He can taste the Christmas pudding on the back of his tongue. It tastes like promise, fulfilment and hope.

And he catches Ginny's eye as she stares wide eyed at his plate.

She doesn't quite smile but there's a warmth in her eyes and he realises she never hated _him- _

Harry, that is, she hated Harry Potter Boy Who Lived

Just like he does.

He vows to speak to her and ask her why she loved Riddle.

And maybe he'll mention the mercury eyed boy who is glancing over surreptitiously beneath his glacial fringe.

Harry's stomach twists with butterflies-not hunger pangs.

And maybe maybe maybe he can do this. Can survive a little longer.

And then there is a flurry of ginger hair and plump, motherly arms are encircling his wasted frame and exclaiming over how skinny he is just like every other year. And Harry realises that he must have blinked

And suddenly he's at the Burrow and Christmas is here.

The Burrow is cosy and warm like Hogwarts has never quite managed to be and Harry can smell roasting meat and the sweet scent of rum and fruit in the air and he's handed a crumbling fruit mince tart and a warm piece of shortbread before his coat is even off. (Which he doesn't eat, of course. Harry is saving himself for the Christmas pudding with custard he has been fantasising about more frequently than Draco and maybe a slice of beef or ham and a roast potato. After all, it is a holiday.)

And Harry is so caught up in his daydreams he fails to see the horrified look on Molly's face as she takes in his emaciated frame. He fails to see the grim look on Ron's face as he shrugs at his father in a way that screams "I told you so!"

He doesn't notice that Hermione's face is taut with stress and worry or that she's clutching Ron's hand like a lifeline. That even Bill and Fleur look shocked.

That of the 20 or so people gathered for a family Christmas, he is the only one who is looking half-way cheerful.

(And that in itself is an accomplishment

And a terrifying thought.)

He doesn't notice anything anymore beyond silver eyes and how many calories he can burn by breathing.

He does however notice the awkward silence and the many eyes that all seem to be staring at him.

And he knows he fucking _knows_ they are about to put their fat ugly noses in where they're not wanted, needed he can smell it taste it like a thick coating of fat on the back of his tongue-

And suddenly the spell that was enveloping him in it's warmth is shattered and he scowls.

"Harry love…" Molly begins tentatively and he turns the wrath of his _Avada Kedavra_ glare on her.

She seems to wilt and suddenly he is filled with scorn for this dumpy pathetic little woman with too many children and too little sense of leaving well enough alone.

"Yes Molly?" He asks and his voice is like frozen honey.

Her eyes fill with tears and she chokes back a sob before throwing her arms around him once more.

"Oh I missed you! And I think your jumper will have to be taken in!" and she laughs and the sound is brittle but Harry laughs too because if they are laughing

It means they are scared

And if they are scared of him, of what he has become then they won't try to fix him-

Not yet.

Not yet not yet _please_ not just yet_- _

a few pounds more to kill the ghosts and stop the staring and let him _sleep-_

But Harry's heart is beating a million miles an hour and he can taste bile in the back of his throat and he realises he has never known true terror

Until now.

And it is 2.00 a.m and Harry can't sleep, not with the unfamiliar sensation of too much food filling his stomach.

His ghosts are particularly loud tonight.

Liquor makes Harry maudlin, but the Firewhiskey has made the ghosts jolly and he wishes they didn't know everything about him.

Right now they're teasing him tormenting him over Ginny and Cho and even Malfoy and what an unattractive

_Fuck_

_Up_

He is when it comes to romance (real or imagined it doesn't make a difference cause really Ginny and Cho were just as imaginary as his scornful smirking silver Draco) and Sirius is laughing loudest tonight and his bark like laugh is echoing in Harry's head and Ron is snoring too fucking loudly and Harry doesn't have curtains and a four-poster to block him out with and everything is too fucking loud and if he doesn't get

out

Out

OUT

FUCKING

**OUT**

**NOW!**

He

Will

Go

Crazy.

So he slips from his bed and the floor boards do not creak beneath his feet and he begins to shake violently in the frigid December air. It is a cold that 3 Molly-jumpers and two long sleeved shirts and his two thickest pairs of flannel pyjama pants and three pairs of woollen socks and thermal fucking underwear cannot alleviate. It's in his bones, his heart, his mind and it will never ever ever ever fucking leave

But he wraps himself in one of the four down quilts on his bed anyway and shoves on another pair of socks before he puts on his fur lined dragon-hide boots (which he had specially made as a Christmas present to himself when he realised his tatty old sneakers would result in losing a toe or ten).

And then he makes his way silently as smoke around the house, listening attentively.

He hears a low murmuring and a hastily muffled giggle and a quickly cut off moan from Bill and Fleur's room and the sounds cause something sour to fill his throat.

Charlie's room rumbles with loud masculine snores and the occasional snuffling grunt and Harry isn't sure why but he finds the sound oddly comforting- it reminds him of a time he cannot remember, but carries within him reminds him of laughing green eyes and messy black hair and a startled expression and love.

Arthur and Molly's room he scurries past quickly because he can taste in the air and the sharp raw quality to the noises that filter out that they are discussing him and his

Problem

And he just doesn't want to know. Doesn't need to know.

The door to the room Ginny and Hermione share is ajar and he can see a flash of familiar bushy brown but no hint of Ginny's blazing mane. Harry frowns, disliking not being able to account for everyone. He wonders what she could possibly be doing at 2.00a.m.

And then Hermione mumbles something in her sleep and he thinks he catches the words

"..'Ry please.." and he creeps forward to see her pretty face all tight lines and fast moving eyes beneath purple lids and he backs away, faintly terrified.

But before he leaves the room he hears her say his name again only this time its panicked- "Harry!" and before he can stop himself he's bending low and pressing a gentle kiss to her temple

(The first contact he has initiated in 6 long months)

And he murmurs softly gently "I'm fine, 'Mione. Promise, I'm fine."

Her face seems to relax slightly and he feels his constricted heart ease, minutely.

And George's room is the only one he has not visited, George himself the only one who has remained unseen. Cocooned in a grief that even Harry with all his ghosts will never understand.

8 long months since the war has ended. And George hasn't said a word.

Harry thinks of his own replication features. Himself a whole made of two easily identifiable halves.

He wonders what it would be like to look in a mirror and know you are half of a whole that has been irrevocably destroyed.

He wonders what it would be like to have your own face

Haunt you.

So he stays away from George's silent as a tomb room.

He makes his way outside to a world covered in a fleecy blanket of fresh fallen snow and illuminated with a golden harvest moon.

And it is beautiful and

Oh

So

_Silent _

And seeing the soft pure landscape makes him wish he was skinny enough

To not leave foot prints in the snow.

He spies a blazing head of hair like a beacon in the pearlescent sheen of the night and makes his way toward it because he promised himself he would talk to her and Harry Potter is a Gryffindor

For the most part

And therefore _not _coward.

And if he faced the most evil wizard who ever lived-

Someone who had literally been inside his fucking head-

Then he can face Ginny Weasely.

Probably.

"Ginny?" he asks and though his voice falls flat in the muffled night air, she turns and smiles at him and moves over on the enchanted bench she is sitting on under an oak tree.

Harry wonders if she was waiting for him.

She's wrapped in a blanket just like him but she holds some of hers out to wrap around his shoulders and Harry blinks away sudden tears at the gesture.

She smiles again, slow and soft and sad and Harry knows he is responsible for the death of the girl with the blaze in her brilliant eyes and nothing he can ever do will ever change the fact that he is a

_Murderer_

In his own eyes.

"I'm so sorry." he says after what seems like millennia of silence and he is aware on some primitive level that she knows exactly who and what he is talking about. He wonders if it due to the fact the were both

Possessed

By a portion of Voldemort's soul

Or if maybe they have always been connected, will always be connected, regardless of circumstance.

That they know the other without need for speech.

Ginny is silent for an age and when she finally speaks, her voice is as fragile as gossamer spider webs

And as brittle as fractured glass.

"Harry I-

I will not lie. I blamed you. For killing Tom Riddle. It destroyed me. When you stuck the Basilisk fang into the diary-

I felt it in my own heart. I could feel my insides corroding

With grief.

And it took me so fucking long to pretend to be

_Normal._

I lost the love of my life at 11 years old and no one can measure up to the beauty of his eyes.

And then one day I looked at you. Like I'd looked at you a thousand times before. But this was different. I knew it was…you were somehow-

Different.

And I burned.

Not the blazing all consuming fire I had felt for Tom

Like it would turn me to ash and leave me to blow away in the wind

But a warm kind of hot kind of

Something.

And it would do.

And it wasn't til I saw Voldemort with his snake like face all twisted in rage pointing his wand at you that I knew what I had been holding out some kind of perverted hope for was long since

Dead.

And it had nothing to do with you or with me; it was the choice of the bastard in front of you.

He had cut out the bit of him that was my

Fucked up beautiful burning boy named Tom and nothing would ever bring him back. Nothing would ever have been able to make him whole

Because he didn't exist in the first place."

Her breathing is ragged when she finishes and her voice is full of such raw grief it twists Harry's heart in two. He knows it is the first time she has ever said it out loud

And he knows it will be the last.

He wraps his twig-like arms around her and holds her close and her tiny hands wrap around his waist and she sobs and sobs and sobs until dawn streaks the sky.

When she speaks again her voice is hoarse.

"Harry?" she asks

"Yeah, Gin?"

"They know, about how you've stopped eating. You might want to be careful. Convince them nothing is wrong. Mum's like a dog with a bone when she gets an idea in her head. After she found out I slept with Seamus she barely let me out of the house and made me take a condom wherever I went. If she knows for sure you're barely eating, she'll force feed you. Literally. And I don't think you would want that…"

Harry is so shocked that for a second he forgets to breathe.

There is no condemnation in her voice, just understanding.

"Thanks for the heads up, Gin." and the relief in his voice is palpable.

Ginny simply smiles warmly at him as she stands and stretches and as she does a sliver of ivory flesh marred with scarlet lines appears.

Harry stares, fascinated and Ginny follows his gaze.

She meets his eyes and he sees a shadow of the former defiant blazing life.

"We all have our coping methods, Harry. And there's nothing wrong with that."

She's got that mulish look on her face and he grins.

"Course not Gin,"

And at that she laughs and twirls and the blanket around her shoulders flares out like wings and the joy on her face in the radiant light of a winter's dawn all gleaming and reflecting on the snow is beautiful enough to make his breath catch.

"Oh and Harry dear?" her voice is like treacle and she cackles as she dances up the hill.

"Draco hasn't stopped staring at you for a month. And you have sneaked a peak on several occasions! You simply _must _tell me all the details!"

And for a moment as Harry chases Ginny up the hill toward the house he forgets that even that makes his lungs ache and legs shake.

Because for a moment he feels like he can fly.


	4. Chapter 4

*Author's Note*

Sorry if people got alerts saying this fic was updated or that I added new chapters other than this. I was trying to edit some stuff and accidentally deleted chapter's instead. Oops. :S I'm not very bright when it comes to technology. THIS CHAPTER HAS SOME DRARRY! So enjoy it my lovelies ;) (You might want to read Follow Me Down to get Draco's reasoning) This chapter is pretty fucking messed up in bits. Umm…yeah so there's **WARNING'S for self harm and ana/mia triggers, slash, Weasley, Hermione and pretty much everyone except Draco bashing and excessively bad language**…Harry's a little pissed. A massive THANKYOU! To everyone who has reviewed this fic! I'm so happy you're enjoying it! And if you're not *enjoying* it I'm glad you like it anyway. I'm just going to be a sap for a second and say that every review I've had has seriously overwhelmed me. It's very touching to be told something you write is "brilliant" or beautiful. *blush* Oh and a note on the font styling: italic is when someone in Harry's head is talking (or just general emphasis), inverted commas is dialogue. At some points it's recounted and it's also broken up by Harry's stream of consciousness. Just wanted to clarify. ON WITH THE FIC!

**J.K Rowling the magnificent owns all. As we know :D Title is from Manic Street Preacher's "4 St 7lbs". Seriously if you want to get in the headspace of an e.d sufferer, listen to it.**

**Chapter 4: Choice Is Skeletal**

Harry's cheeks ache from smiling.

Smiling fucking smiling trying to convince the fat fucking intrusive fucks who he once thought of as

Family

That he is "Fine!"- fucking fine

He's "just stressed-"

Grief

And the total annihilation of one's world, one's purpose,

Can do that.

And maybe he "…hasn't been eating enough" but he

"hasn't had much appetite".

And "It's not like I'm doing it on purpose! I guess I've just never paid much attention

To food."

And he wonders how he keeps a straight face when food is all he ever thinks about. Food and those glorious silver eyes like an anchor in the deep blue sea the only thing that's keeping him from being tossed in the waves-

And someone's speaking again and he forces his spasming cheeks to fucking

Keep smiling!

And maybe he's "been a little depressed…"

Maybe he's "…still grieving"

(And Molly nods sagely, her eyes filling with tears like she knows could possibly comprehend the knowledge that you are a

_Murderer)_

Maybe he's "just stressed from the NEWTS…"

And having "…no idea what to do with my life anymore, haha…"

But that he has "…so many people in my life who love and care about me means so much…"

So. Fucking. Much.

If they love him why won't they _leave him alone?_

And he's "…grateful, really I'm so grateful for everyone's support in this difficult time…"

And he will "Definitely talk to you guys, all of you any of you, any time of the day or night, owl or Floo, yeah, yeah thanks, got it haha…"

But "…I'm fine really! Promise!"

He's fine.

He's Harry Potter.

Of course he's fucking fine.

He is a hero after all

And hero's-as the world knows-are not weak

They do not feel pain.

They do not hunger.

They are invincible and how could Harry ever convince them that starving and aching and dying and beaten down by the ghosts in his head; at the lowest he has ever fucking been- Harry too feels

_Invincible._

(And it's so close to _invisible _but not quite he needs to fucking disappear their eyes, their eyes-!)

So he ate the Christmas turkey and partook in the wearing of paper hats. He ate a serve of pudding and rum custard a full 6 times the size he had been envisioning. He ate the roast potatoes and the baby peas covered in butter. He swallowed every mouthful of carrots and gravy and sweet potato and pumpkin and honeyed ham stuffed with cloves and "Oh yum, look chicken! Of course I'd like seconds…" and thirds and fucking fourths and

"Oh Molly, you've outdone yourself, this is amazing! Trust your Christmas dinner to wake up my appetite haha…"

And he's smiling, smiling, smiling with gritted teeth.

And he's seething inside because how the fuck _dare _they treat him like this?

How dare they stare at him like he's in some kind of fucking zoo.

How dare they act like he can't see them. He's fucking starving himself. That doesn't make him fucking _blind._

And he hates them, fucking _loathes_ them for their little Christmas interfuckingvention. For guilting him into eating because

"It's Christmas Harry dear, a time for healing…"

And Harry smiles at Molly and looks contrite and grateful and thinks:

Who the fuck said that? And if Christmas is so fucking healing why is George still hiding in his fucking room? Why's he allowed to stay damaged when I have to fucking heal?

"We've been so worried about you!"

And Harry smiles sheepishly and says:"Sorry 'Mione…"

And screams in his head in absolute rage: Then why the fuck didn't you tell me that 6 fucking months ago when maybe it would have meant something?

"Mate, we get your…sad…but you can't let this bring you down forever. Dumbledore and Sirius and your parents and bloody hell, even Snape, they wouldn't expect you to grieve forever. You can't let this kill you…"

And Harry just stares at him. Smiles tightly. And Ron looks uncomfortable like he knows maybe he went

Too fucking far.

And all Harry can think is how the fuck would _he _know? Does he have the dead living in his mind, in his bones?

How the fuck would he know what the dead want?

And besides, maybe Harry wants this to kill him. After all he's died once.

He didn't get to enjoy it last time.

And so Harry sits at a table of people he has come to realize don't know a fucking thing about him. Eating, smiling, eating, smiling, _eating._

Never letting on that he wants to scream

And puke

And cry

And rip open his flesh gouge holes in his flesh because he is so fucking full he thinks he might just

_Die_.

And it's back to Hogwarts and Harry hasn't weighed himself in two weeks because every time he turned around at the Burrow it seemed like Ron or Hermione were there, listening for the sounds of gagging or puking or exercising or the incantation to check his weight and he hates them for it. They're too close always

Too

Fucking

CLOSE!

And he wants to scream and rage and push them tell them to FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE. GO FUCK EACH OTHER AND STOP FUCKING WITH ME.

But he doesn't. He just smiles and pretends like the sight of them doesn't make him fucking sick.

And now Harry is alone. A castle is far far bigger than the Burrow and there's so many places to hide so many places and Ron and Hermione could never check them all and besides they think he's

Fine

Now. Two weeks of eating without protest.

As docile as a sedated fucking rat under a microscope.

And now he is alone.

Now he can fucking breathe and check his fucking weight

Even though he's terrified.

Even though the fact he knows in the fleshy weight of his stomach and thighs and flabby arms everything he worked for has been undone.

He takes a deep breath

Whispers the spell in a ragged voice and it's

1

1

8

.

6

His glory undone by the worlds most selfish inconsiderate nosy fucking imbecilic fucking fucks how the fuck could they fucking do this to him they're a bunch of fucking retards fucking pieces of fucking shit he hates them he loathes them how could they do this to him when they're supposed to love him?

They don't, they don't fucking love him. They never fucking loved him and he is a fucking _idiot _for thinking they ever did. This is his punishment. 10.6 fucking pounds when he was _so close _to killing the ghosts. They've been fed and now they're screaming their abuse they're so _LOUD _he can't think can't breathe

_Harry you killed us_

_Harry we hate you_

_Harry you're such a disappointment all we wanted was for you to make us _

_Proud_

_No godson of mine_

_No son of ours_

_We put our faith in you_

_You failed_

_Murderer_

_Murderer _

_MONSTER_

_You are worse than Voldemort Potter_

_You are a FAKE_

_Who were you trying to fool?_

And the snake is joining in with its broken glass rattle burn hiss-

_Fat scum_

_Greedy pig_

_You fucked it up you always fuck up._

_I knew you didn't have the self control. Fat you are fat. You are so fucking ugly and you're fucking pathetic_

_Draco will never ever ever ever ever ever want a fat dumb ugly worthless weak monstrous piece of shit of scum like you._

_Who were you trying to fool? They see the truth they all see the truth you are a fucking laughing stock._

_Weak_

_Weak_

_Fat_

_Ugly_

_Weak_

_Who were you trying to fool who were you trying to fool who were you trying to fool scum scum scum weak scum fat loser ugly dumb fat scum ugly ugly monster monster monster scum loser fat weak ugly ugly fat weak weak weak fat scum monster monster_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

And it's so fucking loud in his head it's killing him the pressure will kill him he's so fat he's fucking huge 118.6 how could he how could it's all his fault everyone's laughing at the fat greedy scum he can't breathe can't breathe wants to tear off his skin release the pressure or he will fucking lose it breathe breathe break burn god release help help-

And through the red haze clouding his mind he gets an image of a ivory skin the same colour as the moonlit snow and the scarlet marring it all raised and ugly and perfect and he knows he knows he knows what to do release the pressure out out OUT!

Harry conjures a knife thinks of the cutting curse but he needs a knife all gleaming silver in the moonlight pouring through the dusty window of an unused classroom.

He is suddenly struck by the beauty

And absurdity of the scene.

How peculiarly striking the wood of the desks looks all scarred with the engravings of names and dates and obscenities.

How hauntingly beautiful the dust looks in the ray of snow muffled light and there desecrating the beauty is

Harry fucking Potter

With a perfect silver shining blade-

The colour of Draco's eyes in the cold cold winter light-

Hacking at the flesh on his stomach.

And he is so fucking cold it takes a moment for him to register the pain

For his blood to flow

And when he does he gasps because it hurts it fucking _hurts_

And it is perfection.

It is release.

Fuck it's halfway to orgasmic.

And he remembers how to breathe.

He remembers that he knows how to lose the weight.

He remembers he does not need to feel guilt towards people he despises

That he doesn't have to eat when they make him.

Choice is skeletal.

But it still exists.

And he has chosen this.

Unlike every fucking other thing in his life-

This, _this _he has chosen.

And Harry does 1300 crunches on the dusty floor as his blood flows.

Does the rest of his exercises 'til his limbs shake and the blood on his pajamas crusts over and turns brown and stiff.

He shoves on his boots and another two jumpers and casts a warming and impervious charm on himself and runs laps around the lake 'til dawn.

And then he showers and dresses and puts on his invisibility cloak and goes to the library and studies 'til the rest of the castle reluctantly wakes.

By the time Ron and Hermione get to Great Hall Harry has had three cups of bitter black coffee and he has smeared marmalade and a few crumbs on his plate.

He smiles at them and Hermione's face lights up and she impulsively hugs him.

Harry tries not to gag.

When she moves away he presses his shaking fingers to the gouge in his stomach.

And the pain is a comfort.

And then somehow a week has passed and Harry hasn't slept. And Harry hasn't eaten.

But he has gotten very good at surreptitious vanishing charms as he

Chews and spits into a goblet

And sneaks bits of food into the napkin on his lap

And sneaks out his wand and

Poof!

It's gone and none of his intrusive so called friends

Are any the wiser.

And Harry is

113.2

And he's sure Draco is

Staring

And he hopes it's not because he's so

_Fucking_

_Fat_

But he doesn't think Draco would be smiling with his eyes if that were so.

And then it happens. Three weeks since Christmas and he weighs 107.1 and he's only eaten 900 calories in that long long time.

Hermione comes down to breakfast an hour fucking earlier than she normally does and catches Harry in an otherwise nearly deserted hall carefully smearing a plate with honey and bread crumbs.

Her chocolate, cinnamon speckled eyes were sleepy

And then they widen so far and so fast Harry thinks she might burst something.

And then she' dragged him out of the hall and into an abandoned class room that looks familiar and he thinks he spies a spot of his blood on the floor.

And she is screaming at him

And sobbing

Begging him

"How could you? How the fuck _could you?"_

And Harry would laugh at her swearing if he wasn't asking himself the very same thing. How could he be dumb enough to get caught?

And how could _they_ be dumb enough to not realize he lost 5 pounds in a week

And you don't do that if you are fucking healthy.

And then she's whispering in a broken ragged voice filled with despair

"Why? Harry please just tell me _why_?"

And Harry is momentarily stumped.

How can he tell her why?

Because he hears ghosts in his bones?

Because he thinks he is fat even though some part of him is aware he is not and never has been?

That he blames himself for the deaths of _everyone_ in the Wizarding War and this deprivation is his penance but it's not because

How can it be penance when he is fucking in love with it?

And that is the truth, isn't it? The why.

Why didn't he talk to them when they offered?

Why didn't he continue eating when the cycle had been momentarily broken?

Why-?

Because he needs it like he needed Voldemort in his head, the taint of Riddle in his skin.

He needs like he needed the maniacal laughter and the Lily green light, the image of the _avada kedavra_ eyes of his mother to sleep.

He needs this thing, this grief, monster, disease like he needs the memory of Draco's eyes staring at him in admiration.

Like he needs the memories of Fawkes in the Chamber of Secrets and Ron and Hermione as they searched for the philospher's stone.

Like he needs to cling to his memory of Sirius singing "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs".

He needs to starve himself like he needs to remember the feeling of flying, of besting a dragon, of the peace of death.

He needs it like he needs the rest so he can remember how to breathe, how to live despite the fact he wishes he had stayed dead.

He needs it because it is the only choice he has ever made and it is the only thing he has ever truly possessed.

He needs it because it is making him happy in a perverse, sick, twisted kind of way. Because it brings him pleasure and control even as it kills him.

But he looks into Hermione's tear filled eyes and know he cannot tell her. That she would never understand.

And besides, he owes her nothing.

He has fulfilled his purpose and he doesn't owe any of them a single damn thing.

"Mione I-

I won't stop. Not for you and not for anyone and I don't want, or need your help. If you can't leave it alone, then I won't expect you to endure it. If you try and make me eat what you call "normally", I will cut off all contact. I'm done with doing things for everyone else but

Me."

Hermione has tears pouring down her face and she's shaking her head back and forth and dimly Harry feels his heart _ache_ but he grits his teeth clenches his fists and reminds him he can cut himself tonight and they have no right to make him feel guilty.

"I can't watch you kill yourself Harry.

Please, we can get you help…!"

But Harry has already walked away.

It's 3 a.m and Harry is wandering the corridors. There's a snow storm outside and Harry thinks it is

Beautiful and

Terrible

Like the

D

I

S

E

A

S

E

He harbours inside of him.

Harry wishes he could run in it but knows it would

Kill him

To do so.

His fragile frame would blow away in the blizzard and he isn't ready to die just yet.

Draco smiled at him today.

A full, genuine, warm smile and Harry felt his frozen insides

Melt.

No one has smiled at him in four weeks

Since Hermione blabbed.

But Harry has kept true to his word and refuses to speak to any of them

As they pressure him

Nag him

Yell at him.

Eat

Eat

Eat!

If only it were ever that simple.

If only he could eat a fucking sandwich or an apple and not compulsively count and then double the amount of potential calories. If he could eat without hating himself

Don't they think he fucking would?

It's fucking inhuman what he has become

It goes against every instinct, everything natural-

He has subverted the survival instinct to eat and though it fills his head with euphoric dizziness

It fucking tastes like ash and bile and death.

And Harry walks the corridors while the blizzard outside rages, completely unaware of the storm coloured eyes that follow him.

Back in the common room,Harry studies instead of eating,sleeping; through blurred vision and the constant, calming ache in his head. He studies 'til his hands start to shake and his writing becomes illegible.

And then he does his exercises and if there is any time left before dawn, he tries to sleep.

Sometimes he even manages to succeed.

Now he has no need to pretend, he spends most of his meal times in the library, only straying into the Great Hall for coffee, and a hopeful glimpse of Draco.

Who truly did smile at him today.

And another week has passed because that's all that time can do is

Pass.

Even time as slow as Harry's.

And he can see his ribs, everyone one of them perfectly outlined and it fascinates him so much, the ladder like way they cover his slow heart, that he carves a matching ladder from the middle of his left thigh to his hip.

The blood looks like ruby red ribbons in the moonlight.

Harry's blood is the same colour as the Philosopher's Stone and the thought makes him laugh-

Who the fuck would want to, strive to, yearn to live forever?

And Draco stares at him in class and Harry dares to think

Maybe

Maybe

Because Draco has changed since the end of the war and Draco glows with a kind of inner light and Draco hasn't said a single mean thing to Harry all year (though he still sends venomous glares toward Ron and Hermione that make Harry giggle).

And it's February and the sky is grey and Harry is ahead with his school work and Harry weighs 99 pounds.

He's aiming for 90.

And Harry has completed all the theoretical school work he can so he sits reading poetry in the dark of the night and wonder's why he is so fucking talentless.

And the ghosts are quiet and the snake simply plans out when he is having his 400 calories tomorrow- it's a non-starvation day and the thought of a ½ a unpeeled, blood red apple so juicy and sweet and flavoursome, is making Harry's salivary glands ache.

And it's quiet in his head but he still doesn't know how to sleep with 14 cups of strong black coffee buzzing through his veins so he walks the corridors.

(And though in his head this is an occasional occurrence

It's routine now.

Like 8 lazy hours in a cosy bed is for some.)

Hogwarts is so peaceful without the threat of Snape looming around every corner. Harry doesn't even have to wear his invisibility cloak.

And his head is buzzing and he is so fucking happy and the snake is so fucking

_Almost _

_Proud_

Cause he is as skinny as he has ever been and his wrist bone looks like its trying to break through his skin.

And suddenly out of the darkness comes the voice Harry has yearned over for 10 long lonely aching months.

"Harry Potter." Comes Draco's voice and it hasn't said a word to Harry in months and Harry realizes every fantasy he has ever had falls flat on it's face in comparison to Draco fucking Malfoy's sinful voice. Harry wonders briefly through the hungry haze in his head how the fuck he managed to live without jumping Draco's bones all those years.

So many wasted opportunities…he thinks dazedly and Draco is talking but Harry can't hear a word.

All he can see is those pretty lips of Malfoy's as they talk and talk shaping words Harry cannot understand and they're all full and soft looking- like roses, like the heart shaped candy you see around Valentine's Day and Harry unconsciously licks his own lips and feels how dry and cracked they are in comparison.

It's only because he is staring so intently at Draco's mouth that he notices Draco swallowing at Harry's movement.

And Harry gets it.

Gets the smiles and the stares and fuck maybe even the overwhelming animosity between the two all those fucking years.

He gets what Draco is trying to say even though he hasn't heard a fucking word.

He raises his suddenly wicked eyes to Draco's.

Smiles and it's all predator. It's a fucking _hungry _smile and

Draco's beautiful eyes widen. And then he smirks back.

And it's only when Harry has his skeletal arms wrapped around Malfoy like vines that he realizes how fucking much he missed that fucking smirk.

And Draco has his tongue shoved so far down Harry's throat that Harry would be heaving if he had a gag reflex. And then Draco's moaning as he ravishes Harry's neck and he's sucking and murmuring something Harry can't catch but it doesn't matter anyway because through the tingling in his groin and the buzzing in his head Harry can't really concentrate on words anyway.

There is only the

Touch

Taste

Feel

Suck

Lick

Bite

Taste

Taste

Taste

Harry captures Draco's lips once more, pulling the taller boy down by a tuft of his silken hair because Draco's mouth tastes like cotton fucking candy so sweet and warm and delicious and Harry cannot get enough.

Everything he has been through ever in his entire fucking life is worth it just for this

One

Perfect

Moment.

And then Draco has his smooth white cold soft beautiful long fingers trailing up Harry's shirt and Harry gasps and freezes as Draco's finger's touch the slashes on his stomach.

And Draco stops and raises his eyes Harry's and Harry knows that Draco has broken whatever mad spell he was under to want to touch him in the first place and now he will leave and-

Suddenly Harry is whisked into a nearby classroom and his shirt is off and his trousers are at his knees and there is a _Lumos _light revealing every flaw on his desecrated skin and Draco kneels at his feet, examining him in minute detail, completely

Enraptured.

Harry can see his pupils

Dilating

And he thinks that's good,

right?

Draco traces his fingers across the gouges on his stomach and follows the path of the ones on his thigh.

"Harry-" and his voice is ragged and his silver eyes fill with diamond tears and he chokes out-

"You are so fucking unbelievably beautiful."

And silver and a suddenly suspiciously bright emerald meet and clash and melt and Draco presses a single burning kiss to Harry's lips, as soft as a dream and then he disappears as silently as smoke in the moonlight.

And all Harry can do is gasp and gape and stare and reach out helplessly to the door Draco just vanished through.

And Harry shivers even as his throat burns and he will not fucking cry not over Draco fucking Malfoy who obviously left because Harry is so fucking

_Fat._

And Harry pulls his clothes on, trousers up but shirt open and conjures a blade and makes himself bleed

So he fucking will _not_

Cry.

Harry Potter is

97.2

Pounds and he has turned himself to

Ice

And nothing

And no one will thaw him

Because no one can be trusted

Not even a pair of quicksilver eyes

And a cotton candy mouth.

(A/N: Ahh I'm so sorry, I didn't want to end the chapter on this because you'll all hate me. Read Follow You Down to see why Draco leaves. I'll update ASAP don't worry :D)


	5. Chapter 5

*A/N:*

I should be sleeping instead of writing this, but I have been triggering myself all day and I was really happy all day but I had too much caffeine and not enough food and now I crashed and am insanely miserable and I don't even know what I just wrote but I hope it's halfway decent. It's NOT the ending! There's still a couple more chapters to go. I will be adding to Follow Me Down, soonish, so you can get Draco's p.o.v.

Please, please, please review! I know there are people reading this, because people put me on alert…it takes 5 seconds longer to review and I'm so insanely IN this piece that I have no idea if what I'm writing is good and I could especially use the confidence boost tonight. (Rant over, I apologise).

**WARNINGS STILL APPLY. YOU KNOW THEM.**

**J.K ROWLING OWNS ALL CHARACTERS ETC. TITLE FROM "Skin and Bones" Picture Me Broken.**

**Chapter Five: Everything You Touch Will Fall To Pieces**

And suddenly it is spring and all around Hogwarts people are tentatively starting to remove layers and allow their sluggish hibernating blood to thaw.

Green shoots appear in the ground.

The emerald grass peeps through the remaining grey slush.

Pale, pinkish buds appear on trees, and bushes, ready to unfurl at any moment into a riot of colour and scent.

Daffodils are the first to appear, a rich, sunshine yellow and Harry wonders if Professor Sprout has cast a charm to turn the entire school into a green house because surely it can't be spring

Already.

And Harry is so cold his teeth chatter in the spring sunshine.

Harry adds another layer to his winter clothing.

Harry thinks that maybe the school has gone

Crazy

Because Harry alone has not

Thawed.

Harry Potter weighs 89 pounds.

And he isn't sure what his goal is anymore because a part of him knows that he will never reach it.

Never stop.

But he has to aim for something because other was what on earth would he, could he

Live for?

The silver, storm coloured eyes have stopped staring and Harry aches

Before remembering that is

_Not allowed._

He sits alone at meal times, because Madam Pince finds his purposeless shufflings around the library vaguely unsettling and so has forbade him from the library on the premise of an unreturned library book which no one else had borrowed in 50 years because it bears on the borrow slip the name

Tom

Marvelo

Riddle.

So Harry sneaks into the library at midnight, searching for the names he knows.

Lily Evans

Albus Dumbledore

Severus Snape

Remus Lupin

James Potter

Sirius Black

Harry is seeking comfort in the connections he finds with the dead.

At night he traces his fingertips over their names, feeling for the imprint of souls long since departed.

He ate today, because it is a Tuesday or a Thursday or a Saturday and he's allowed to eat 300 calories

3 times a week

Because otherwise, he has found, his body refuses to metabolise a thing and though he loses, it is so very, very slow.

Because otherwise he might binge.

Because he needs something to break up his slow, slow, colourless, flavourless time now he has no Ron and no Hermione, no Ginny or even Seamus, or Neville or Dean or anyone to talk to because he has scared them off with his vicious, biting remarks and glacial glare.

(And even if he hadn't, they would be afraid to talk to him now, because he might break with the weight of their breath).

Hermione sends him pleading looks at meal times, and smiles sadly to herself when he beats her in class.

Ron shoots him the occasional wounded, helpless look. The kind that reminds Harry of a kicked kitten.

Ginny death glares him, her chocolate eyes furious. She has rebuked him loudly, in both public and private for being what she terms a "tossing wanker" for driving away his family.

She told him: "Families nag Harry, it's what they do. They can't help but worry, be it over something like this or whether or not you brushed your bloody teeth before going to bed. They are trying to _help_ Harry, even if you don't want it. They love you! We all love you. And god knows they're nagging is bloody annoying but it's ingrained. It's what families are _for_ Harry…"

And Harry looked at her with ice in his heart and his eyes and told her:  
>"I wouldn't know, Ginerva. I have <em>never <em>had a family."

At which point she Bat Bogey Hexed him and stalked away sobbing.

Harry is all alone now

And all those he has driven away are silent

And he wishes he hadn't done that sometimes because part of him regrets it.

Part of him _hates _them.

For nagging him to eat.

For stopping.

For leaving, like he knew they would.

Like Draco did.

And Harry is so very, very cold.

At 87 pounds he tells himself very firmly that he will stop at 85 because that is far enough.

The snake laughs.

And laughs

And laughs.

And the ghosts join in and Harry has to slice open his palms for them to

Stop.

At 83 he thinks

Enough

Enough

Enough

Dear God let this be

_**E**_

_**N**_

_**O**_

_**U**_

_**G**_

_**H**_

_**PLEASE GOD LET ME **_

_**STOP**_

_**STOP**_

_**STOP!**_

He doesn't know how to stop.

He does not know how to want to stop.

Harry is sitting in the second floor bathroom, staring dejectedly at the spot he knows the opening to the Chamber is hidden. He remembers that the exit was destroyed, that it was Fawkes who got him out.

He thinks maybe he could jump down down down the tunnel and no one would ever find him and he could stay there til he finally died.

And maybe the eyes would stop staring, stop following the path of his Holocaust frame.

McGonagall intervened today,

Tried

To intervene today.

At

8

3

Pounds

Harry Potter is 51 pounds underweight and is

Dying.

(And knows it).

As it is

May

This has been going on for a

Year?

No, surely less than

More than a year

Maybe a lifetime.

Maybe.

(If there is even something going on. Which there emphatically is

_Not._

He's fine, isn't he?

He's the hero, isn't he?

Was he?

And what is a hero anyway

If he can't kill the creature tame the dragon get the girl be strong save the world but most importantly

Save himself.)

51 pounds and maybe a lifetime of

Neglect and abuse and self destruction and only now is someone truly

Intervening?

Harry thinks of Christmas and thinks

What a piss poor excuse for help that was.

McGonagall's tactic was much more blunt.

"Either Madame Pomfrey and I treat you or we send you to St. Mungo's.

Mr. Potter this simply cannot go on! You should know you will be sent to the infirmary immediately whatever you choose for emergency medical care.

You are dying, Harry. And as both your principal, and, I believed at one stage, your friend, I cannot let this continue. I should never have let this go so far…"

Harry is shocked at the tears in her eyes.

He wonders what they see that make them look at him that way.

Wonders what he has become to make McGonagall of all people to

Cry

And he thinks-

Ok.

And

Maybe this is far enough and maybe I should try and

Stop now.

Learn to live with the ghosts in my bones, the snake in my head.

Maybe I should let myself

Heal.

Because if McGonagall is crying

Maybe in Heaven

If there is a Heaven

My mother is too.

So Harry tells McGonagall

"Yes.

Ok. I'll try treatment here. I'll try.

I'm sorry."

And McGonagall hugs him and her brittle bones feel like steel compared to Harry's.

Harry becomes their rag doll.

Lets them prod him and poke him.

Push him and inject him.

Examine him and exclaim over him.

Let's them force sickly sweet potions down his unresisting throat.

Cast spells on his emaciated desecrated frame.

They heal his wounds.

But he makes them let him keep the scars.

They repair his brittle

"Like a 90 year old's!"

Bones

He takes the nutrient potions and tries not to think about how many calories are in the bubblegum pink mixture.

He ingests a dreamless sleep and detoxifying potion

And he tries not to think

_Poison_

He tries not to let on how the snake is screaming abuse in his head

Or that the ghosts are raging, cackling, screaming in his bones.

His wand is confiscated

And McGonagall is

"Minding"

His invisibility cloak, and the Marauders map.

Harry can see in their eyes they are considering restraining him.

But they read his docility as

Compliance and maybe they have some respect for the

Boy

Man

Hero

Who saved all their lives so they only cast a simple locking charm on the hospital wing doors

And leave him, all alone in a ward where the beds look like

Skeletons

And cold blue moonlight rushes through.

Harry wonders why he is here.

Why he agreed when his demons are screaming so loudly in his head

He thinks he needs to sleep and maybe things will be alright in the morning,

And maybe he has a concussion on the Quidditch Pitch and maybe this has all been a horrible, awful, gut-wrenching, soul crushing

Dream.

He thinks dimly he would like to wake up because he wants it to stop now

Needs it to stop now

Because he can feel at the back of his mind

Like the sun about to rise up over the horizon

That he is seconds away from doing something monumentally stupid

And his own calm in the raging in his mind

Is simply the precursor to the inevitable storm

The same grey-blue-mauve-green-silver-grey-grey as

Draco Malfoy's eyes.

Harry doesn't remember how he got to the bathroom.

He has blood on his hand but he can't tell if that's because he punched his way through a door, or because he has been repeatedly scratching the scars on his arm for the past age.

His wand is somehow lying on the floor beside him as if by

Magic.

And his hollow laugh echoes through the empty room.

Harry is seeing double and it's going grey at the edges.

His mouth tastes like blood and bile because he just made himself puke up

Stomach acid.

The bitter, metallic scent of it invades his nostrils, and seems to fill the entire room.

The wall he is leaning on is cold and damp and smells earthy and he presses his feverish face to it.

He tries to stand, because there is something he has to do.

He wishes he had stayed in the hospital wing.

That he had told Madame Pomfrey he had become immune to sleeping potions.

He wishes he could sleep

And eat

And let them truly help him.

He wishes he could die because there is nothing here worth holding onto.

Because he made everyone leave

And no one wants him anyway.

And Draco doesn't look at him in admiration anymore

Draco doesn't even look at him at all.

And maybe it was a dream

Maybe Harry had a hunger delusion of being called

Beautiful

And that would make sense because Harry wants to be thin more than he wants food and skinny

Is

Beautiful

Right?

If boys even can be beautiful.

But not Harry, Harry is not-

And then Harry hears running footsteps and gasping breaths and then the door to the bathroom slams open and Harry draws closer to the wall,

Though he knows it is too dark to see him even though the racing gasping someone has cast a _lumos. _

But when Harry hears a familiar desperate heaving gagging wretched retching, he creeps forward

He thinks someone is probably

Drunk

But why would they choose this bathroom?

And why would they be sobbing

And there is something familiar about the murmuring gasps-

So Harry creeps forward more, approaching the cubicle where the figure kneels.

And as soon as he sees the shining white hair in the _lumos _light he knows.

"Draco? What are you doing?"

Though it's perfectly obvious what Draco is doing.

Harry envies his gag reflex. Draco's fingers are only down to his second knuckle

Harry had to shove revolting combination of vinegar, milk, cherry flavoured cough syrup and salt directly onto the curve of mouth and oesophogus to puke up the little he managed.

Then again, Draco always was better at almost

Everything.

Draco spins around, silver eyes teary and gleaming and desperate.

There's vomit marring his perfect cheek bone and

Harry thinks there might be some in his hair.

Draco still has his fingers in his mouth and he drops them slowly.

Saliva covered and smeared with puke, the bony, white hands Harry has imagined countless times buried in his hair and wrapped around his cock

Shine.

Draco stares.

And stares some more.

Harry waits, patiently.

And then when it becomes clear Draco is not going to speak or move, Harry sits casually down beside him

As if it were perfectly normal to be sitting next to your

Crush worst enemy wank fantasy almost potential lover thing, who has not looked at you in months, and who froze your heart and is covered in vomit when you are contemplating suicide after escaping from the hospital wing where you have been because you have an eati…problem, at 3.00 a.m in a unused girls bathroom when both of you are males.

Harry wants to laugh.

But he is afraid he might cry.

Because he has not let himself look long at Draco since that night

And now he hates himself more because if he had maybe he would have noticed that the already pointy Draco is skinnier than ever

His cheekbones look sharp enough to cut star light.

His perfect, wonderful, mysterious eyes are bloodshot and watery and those delicate white aristocratic hands of his are marred at the knuckles with scarlet abrasions.

His nails are ragged.

His hair is lank.

His skin is waxy.

There is no life in those eyes

Only shame and

Fear.

And Harry says simply one word, the question he himself can never answer.

"

W

H

Y

?

"

And Draco looks at him

Broken and battered and Harry aches for him like he has never allowed himself to ache for himself.

He feels not pity but

Compassion.

And then Draco opens his pretty pink swollen mouth

Still with a fleck of vomit marring it

A mouth Harry remembers tasting like cotton candy

And says in the most heartbreaking voice Harry has ever heard:  
>"Because I wanted to look<p>

Just

Like

You.

Wanted to make myself invisible before their eyes like you.

Because you are so beautiful

You are the

H

E

R

O

And I am the Death Eater scum and I thought

How could you in your perfect ruination

Want someone as

Imperfect

Corrupt

Damaged

Broken

Ugly

As

Me?"

Harry stares and his dull green eyes seem to

Spark

With an incandescent fury

A blazing light

They glow

_Avada kedavra_

Emerald

The same colour Lily Potter's did

Moments before she died to save her son.

They glow with

Fire

Fury

Life

_**LOVE**_

And Harry's demons are momentarily

Silenced.

"Don't you ever dare speak that way about my Draco again! You are and always have been completely and utterly

_Perfect_

And you do

_Not _

Want to be

_Me._

You should not want to be anything like me.

You should not want me.

I am

_Ugly._

And

_Crazy._

I hear the dead in my bones."

He has mumbled the last sentence into Draco's neck. And hopes he has not heard.

His arms are like kindling.

But they hold Draco as tightly as if they are made of steel.

And Draco sobs and clings to Harry like Harry is the port in the storm and Harry presses his face into Draco's skin like without it he cannot breathe and Draco murmurs:

"My father was sentenced to death 4 months ago. Two months he started telling me what to do again.

His voice won't leave me alone. How do I kill a man who is already dead?"

And Harry thinks the same thing and he presses a kiss, desperate and burning, to Draco's mouth.

It tastes like tears and bile and blood.

Like

Hope.


	6. Chapter 6

*A/N*

Sorry for the longer time between updates. I've had a bunch of personal drama that's like…blah. It's fucked. Fuck I hate people right now. E.D'S ARE NOT ABOUT FOOD YOU FUCKWITS. Sorry. Ahem. This chapter turned out very differently to how I imagined it would. I wasn't going to end it there, but my most loyal reviewer said she'd like some happiness. So, it's happyish. J So…normal **slash, trigger (e.d's/ self harm), various bashing of beloved characters etc. etc. warnings apply. **Oh and just a general note, all the title songs are insanely triggering. Please if there's anyone with an e.d reading this and you're attempting recovery, for gods sake don't listen. Actually, please don't read. As always shout out to everyone who reviews and anyone's who's reading my whiny author's notes lmao. Oh and there's three or four more chapters after this J

**J.K ROWLING THE FANTASTIC OWNS ALL. I'M JUST TAKING MY ANGST OUT ON THEM :D Title from "Pro Ana Party Slamma" Kitty On The Catwalk (Was more relevant in the original but meh)**

**Chapter 6: Starvation Is Control**

It's 5 a.m and the summer sunlight is staring to prick the sky.

And the skeleton beds of the hospital wing

Gleam and glow in the haunting light.

Harry can taste blood and cotton candy in his mouth and every time he inhales he smells the bittersweet smell of Draco

Who lies with his glowing white hair spread across Harry's chest.

Harry stares at it with blurry sleep starved eyes and thinks

"It's the colour of a unicorn's mane and Draco is like a unicorn

Pure and rare and haunting and perfect.

And I have to protect him.

And maybe what I feel for him

Will kill what I feel for the disease ridden monsters and we will both be

Free."

It's the third week of May and Harry Potter is being admitted to St. Mungo's for what Professor McGonagall refers to as his

"Unsettled and self destructive eating habits and possible post-war traumatic effects."

She says this with a stiff upper lip but Harry can see the worry in her eyes and though he has repeatedly told her just how very fine he is

Being a hero

And not dead yet

She looks disappointed and shakes her iron-grey head.

Harry has been in the hospital wing for three days, with Draco for company, because when McGonagall discovered the pair, Draco with his fluffy haired head on Harry's shoulder, and Harry with his arms wrapped like vines around Draco's torso, and both of them looking relaxed for the first time in

Years

She didn't have the heart to separate them.

And besides, McGonagall always had a soft spot for Romeo and Juliet, and knew just how dangerous

Separated young lovers could be.

And though Draco would not be accompanying Harry to St. Mungo's

(Because he "Doesn't have a problem. Except for the fact that my mother is under house arrest for saving the Boy Who Lived's life and I can't walk around the school without being called "scum". But I myself am physically, perfectly peachy")

He would be allowed time off school to visit, three times a week, as long as he maintained a rigorous study schedule.

Exams were in two weeks.

And Harry would not be sitting them.

An average would be given under these "somewhat unusual circumstances."

Harry's first thought was that Hermione would be furious if she found out.

His second was that he would be missing on the very thing he came back for- finishing with his best friends. Final exams, graduation, that final journey on the Hogwarts express.

He wondered what else this disease would have stolen if he had kept going.

He wondered if he had anything left to lose.

And he tried not to think about what it gave him

_Control_

_I give you control_

_And isn't that what you wanted?_

_Mastery of your own destiny?_

_And isn't that exactly what _

_They're_

_Taking_

_Away?_

_You can't live without me…_

Harry stares at the sunrise.

5.45 a.m and the sky is bleeding.

He tries not to pick at the crusted over scabs on his stomach and hands and thighs.

Tries not to wonder how many pounds they've managed to load him up with already.

Tries not to gag and shudder and scream at the thought of

_Their_

Goal weight for him

135

It's a foul number to him.

It reeks of

Rotting corpses

Clotting, congealing blood on marble

The screams of the dying

The scent of burning human hair and flesh

The sight of Nagini's head as it flew into the air

The sight of Sirius's face as he fell into the veil

The charred rubble of Hogwarts, post-battle

Fenrir Greyback's yellow nails and teeth

The scent of Quirrel's turban

The taste of fat on his tongue

The heavy feel of the ghosts on his bones

The dull look in Draco's eyes as he basically told Harry

It was all Harry's fault

But who lies beside him anyway.

Draco, who stirs and mumbles in his sleep.

Who is sick.

And who won't admit it.

Whose lips are Harry's to kiss and claim

And who last night bit him so hard on the collarbone he drew blood.

Who told Harry

"I

Love

You.

I will love you even if you weighed a thousand pounds."

Draco who recognizes the look in Harry's eyes

Who knows

Compliance is not the same as

Surrender.

That you have to forfeit the battles

If you want to win the war.

So Harry waits, as the dawn streaks the sky.

Tells himself he wants to get better

Though secretly he knows he is a

_Liar_

And knows that he isn't saying good bye to his disease

He is saying

"Au revoir"

And it's 7.00 a.m and Madam Pomfrey bustles in to give him his nutrient potions and check he's ready.

And suddenly it's 7.30 and McGonagall's waiting in her office with his trunk, so they can Floo to St. Mungo's.

Draco embraces him fiercely though it makes both their bones ache and kisses him hard enough to draw blood

And tells him

"I love you.

Please try."

And for those stormy eyes and unicorn-tail coloured hair and cotton candy lips

Harry will do anything. So he nods and shakily smiles.

And then he's in the waiting room and it's all white squeaking shoes on sterile white linoleum floors and everything is

White white white!

The shoes the floor the colour of the patients skin the Healer's uniforms the desk the chairs its all too too white it's blinding

Like bones left to weather in a graveyard

Like dead men's skin

And the white's of the dead men's eyes

And the smell of antiseptic is making Harry's nose burn

And his eyes water

And he can hear the sounds of heartbeats as spells monitor them

Can hear people coughing, retching, gagging, screaming

The sounds of spells being murmured in soothing voices

And clocks ticking

It's all too loud

And he's getting more panicked by the second because surely McGonagall can't _leave _him _here_

People are staring to stare.

Murmuring his name like a prayer

_Harry Potter_

_Harry Potter_

_Can it be Harry Potter?_

_He's so thin too thin can it be Harry Potter Harry Potter, no, yes, yes, no, can't be, it is it is Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter _

And McGonagall's glaring at them and her bony hand

Is gripping his shoulder in an achingly tight grip and her mouth is pursed and Harry is sure if she was in her Animagus form right now,

She would be hissing with her claws extended.

He's almost touched at her defence of him. But hates her because it's all her fault

And the whispers are too loud and he can't breathe and people are staring and why are they staring? All those faces eyes ugly and strange and at Hogwarts everyone is too scared to stare and he can't breathe can't breathe he feels so fat they're saying thin they mean fat when did the Boy Who Lived turn into such a lard-arse that's what they're all thinking he can't breathe can't believe he ate can't believe he agreed to this he needs to be hungry empty hollow whole and McGonagall is looking alarmed he must look bad breathe breathe

"Draco," he chokes out

"I need Draco!"

And then everything is turning black around the edges and all he can see is the dirty linoleum floor as it rises up to meet him.

When he wakes he is in a dark room and an exhausted looking Draco with bruise like circles under his tarnished silver eyes is smiling sweetly at him and brushing his sweaty hair of his face.

"Missed me already huh?" Draco asks and though his tone is light, his voice is scratchy and scared.

Harry can smell the acidic scent of vomit on his breath and fear on his skin.

"How long was I sleeping?" Harry asks and he is vaguely alarmed at how weak his voice sounds.

He is disgusted with himself.

He is the hero.

He should be

Strong.

"A bit over 24 hours. The Healer's said the strain of your panic attack overwhelmed your body. They said you were completely exhausted, and you must have been running entirely on adrenalin and magic. You said you'd been sleeping!"

Draco's eyes gleam with accusation and Harry dips his head in shame.

"I did sleep. An hour or two." He mumbles and Draco sighs.

"At least you're here now. They've been trying to heal you while you've been asleep. They must have cast dozen of diagnostic spells, trying to figure out how the hell you got so malnourished,"

And here Draco smiles, and it is sad and proud and bitter and venomous all at once and it makes Harry's skin crawl, because here is the resentful, arrogant, spoilt Draco he remembers

And he is so very different from the Draco who looks at him with tears in his eyes and

Calls Harry beautiful.

"You know they have no names for what's wrong with you, Harry? The Wizarding world has no concept of the degradation we willing put ourselves through. This thing you have… is so very _Muggle. _Wizards will occasionally slice themselves with cutting curses, overdose on Dreamless sleep and other such potions

But they do not starve themselves to the point where they're nearly dead; they do not hear the voices of the dead in their heads.

It's expected a potion or spell will fix everything

That our magic will save us.

And they have no clue what to do with you.

So well done Harry, once again you are a magical

Marvel."

Harry looks at Draco, with his bitter smirk twisting his aristocratic features and turning his pretty mouth ugly and he is astonished.

"Draco…

This thing I have…the disease, you know you have it too. Or at least something similar. We're marvels together!" and Harry laughs hoping to ease the tension, trying to work out what he's done to make Draco's eyes turn icy and hate-filled.

"No, _Potter, _we are not.

You after all, are the one in the hospital bed, with a team of a dozen Healer's working day and night, fretting and fussing. I however am at Hogwarts, forced to do exams though my head is swimming and my throat is bleeding. I was told, quite explicitly, by Professor Slughorn, that as a disgraced Slytherin, I had no right to this attention seeking behaviour and that all my so-called "privileges" would be suspended if I kept it up.

I was told that my behaviour in the war was

Disgusting

And it was far too late to strive for sympathy now.

Potter, I am in no way like

You."

And he turns, his back ramrod straight and spine poking through his shirt and Harry isn't quite sure if he imagines Draco saying as he leaves:

"No matter how much I wish to be."

And then there are the dozens of Healers, as Draco said there were and they're swarming around him like flies come to feast on a corpse.

Harry wonders who is being left to die as they all frantically try to heal the Boy Who Lived

Competing for the prestige of being the one

To save the saviour.

They pour sickly sweet and burningly acidic potions down his throat.

They feed him starnge herbs and food that looks like it came straight from Molly Weasley's kitchen.

They cast pink spells and purple spells, blue and red and gold and tangerine and triggering silver sparks.

But no green.

He wonders why green is the colour of the

Killing curse

When in nature it is the colour of

Life.

He wishes there were more green.

It might help him to sleep.

The nights are cold with the aching absence of Draco beside him in his skeleton bed.

The sheets smell of lavender and rosemary and sage

As the multitude of healers try to soothe him, save him.

But Draco is right.

They know nothing of his disease.

And so though his weight

And supposedly his

Health

Is slowly increasing,

90

95

100

105

Harry's mind is still churning with demons and he misses Draco's storm fevered eyes

Like he misses the aching hunger in his bones.

They have no names for it

So they call it

"Post-War Trauma"

They tell him everyone suffered ill-effects from the war and the relief of it being over and the horror of all that occurred, manifested itself in different ways in everyone in Wizarding Britain.

They say it's no wonder Harry suffered the strangest and most damaging effects

Considering he was the most significant player.

Harry wants to tell them of Draco and his damages

He wants to tell them of the role Hermione and Ron played- a braver role than him

For they had a choice and he never did

And is not bravery all about

Choosing to overcome your fear?

He thinks

All he had to do was die and cast a spell he had cast a thousand times before.

They had to stand beside him and watch it all, be in it all

Just for him.

And his guilt at losing them eats him up inside

And it's almost like starvation

But without the giddy sense of

Control.

And Harry's nights are long and lonely

And summer is creeping into his bones

And maybe he is thawing

Because at night his tears roll silently down his cheeks as he pokes and prods the strange flesh on his stomach and thighs.

And when the sunlight pours in through the expansive windows

In Harry's own private ward

All glittering and golden

(And yet not as lovely as Draco's moon coloured eyes)

He can feel the heat on his skin.

It is July.

3 weeks til his 19th birthday.

And Harry is all wrapped up in hospital sheets with a crowd of thousands still trying to

"Help"

Him. Like he is some incapable orphaned new born

Without eyes or limbs or a brain or a heart

Who actually needs them.

He weighs 120 pounds.

It disgusts him that through their prodding and poking and poisoning and cursing they've managed to make him put on nearly 40 pounds

In one short month.

All that weight that took him

A year

Or more

Or some time

Some long, long, endless forever seeming time to lose.

He can feel the ghosts laughing in his bones

Chortling

Cackling

Crowing

Giggling

As they feast on his bloated flesh.

The snake is hissing it's disapproval

And it's litany of familiar, deserved insults soothe him with their lullaby rhythm

Like the Healers and their herbs never could.

_Pathetic retard, stupid fat idiot, you deserve everything you get, how could you be so weak, you fuck up everything good in your life_

_Fat _

_Dumb_

_Weak_

_Idiot_

_Fat _

_Dumb_

_Weak_

_Idiot_

_Fat _

_Dumb_

_Weak_

_Idiot_

_Fat _

_Dumb_

_Weak_

_Idiot_

_Fat_

_Dumb_

_Weak_

_Idiot_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Murderer_

_Monster_

_Hideous_

_Monstrous_

_Murderer_

_Sirius Lily James Remus Tonks Riddle Fred Snape Dumbledore Cedric_

_Draco Draco Draco Draco Draco_

And the snake keeps it time by his now regular heartbeat

And his gasping strangled midnight breaths.

125 and they're praising his complicity.

Praising his efforts

Though he does not do anything

But lie back and eat.

They're saying that he should be able to go home by his birthday

If he continues to co-operate.

They'll let him out at 135

And monitor his progress at home.

They keep using that word

H

O

M

E

And Harry doesn't know why.

He has no home.

He has no family.

He's killed them all or driven them away.

He supposes he will go back to Grimmauld Place when he is out of this hell hole

Celebrate his birthday with Kreacher and his ghosts

Maybe he will celebrate

With a thousand crunches

And allow himself to think of firm sweet lips and cool smooth hands.

130 and a week and a half to go til his birthday and Harry can taste freedom

Like honey in the back of his mouth

They've been letting him out to walk around a heavily warded garden

Harry wonders for the first time about life outside

What the Prophet has been reporting about his

Absence

And whether Hermione and Ron know what's been going on

They would worry, he knows

If they didn't.

He wonders how Draco and Ginny and Ron and Neville and Seamus went in the exams.

He knows Hermione would have achieved all O's by blinking.

He wonders what the graduation ceremony was like and if people missed him

He wonders who cried on the train ride home.

He wonders if Draco burns like Harry burns

If his nights are spent, restless and aching and confused.

He allows himself, all alone in the summer sunlight in a garden heavy with the scent of roses

To imagine reconciling with his friends

Family

And allowing himself to maintain this weight

Allowing health to stay

And the aching grieving guilt

To die

In the summer sun

And with a head that does not ache

And hands that do not shake

And a small smile on his filled out face

He hopes.

His eyes glow green as emeralds and he looks every inch

The saviour he once was.

And suddenly it's the eve of his birthday and he weighs

133

And since he has been asking for

"Seconds!"

At every meal

They say he is healed

He is ready to leave

And Harry needs freedom

Because even though he is

Trying

He can still feel the snake behind his smile

And the sight of the skeleton beds

And the squeaking Healers shoes

Are driving him insane

And he thinks

Grimmauld Place and healthy eating

Controlled and not controlling

And some peace and quiet and alone time

And he really will be healed

Forever and ever

And he will do something with his life

Maybe read a lot

Or start to fly again

Or just walk around parks a lot

And appear at charity events

And it will all be fine.

And the Healers are helping him pack his bags

Compiling thick piles of paperwork

Instructions on his dietary needs and potions and when the Healers will make their household calls and how much exercise he should be getting and the weight he should maintain and breathing exercises for when he is

Stressed.

And then it's his birthday

And for the first time in over a month he is dressed in his not-so-baggy-anymore jeans and a forest green t-shirt that brings out the glow in in cheeks and his eyes.

His hair is once more lush and sticking up like he has just been electrocuted

His hands do not shake

And his snake and ghosts are reasonably quiet

And he thinks

"I can live like this."

And the Healers are smiling, grinning, laughing, whispering and they're looking at Harry with mischievous eyes and though it's making him uncomfortable enough to fidget with his shirt hem

It's not the overwhelming panic it once was.

And then he is being led to the discharge lounge and being given hugs but the overjoyed Healers

Who think they saved the Saviour

And they open the doors to the waiting room

And Harry nearly faints

For there filling up the room with a blazing light of red-hair are the Weasley's, and Hagrid looms joyfully in the corner, his head brushing the ceiling and Hermione is jumping up and down with her bushy hair flying everywhere and Ron is grinning nervously and Ginny is poking her tongue out and it's all too much

They never forgot him

Never ever left. And then there is a slightly strained silence as a tall, white figure steps through the crowd and makes his swaggering way towards Harry.

Draco picks up Harry's bag with a long fingered hand that trembles slightly

But his silver starlight eyes are glowing.

"Harry,' he greets coolly

But the next thing to come out of his mouth is a muffled, sobbing laugh

As Harry wraps his arms around him and tastes the cotton candy mouth he has longed for.

And the cat-calls and whistles of his family

And the feel of Draco's warm arms around his healthy frame

Taste like victory.


	7. Chapter 7

*A/N*

So again, sorry it's been a while since I updated…things have been hectic. I've had my first lot of uni assignments and a lot of sleep to catch up on. I'm not really sure about this chapter…it was kind of just to get things moving but I don't know. I don't really like it. I'm pretty sure there is going to be one more chapter after this. Which is a little sad, cause I do like this fic, but also a relief, cause I'm kind of over it and stalled and I want to move on to finishing Follow You Down and start something else. I'm warning you again, this won't be happy. This chapter is mild compared to next and I'm kinda just beinggentle in this chapter so you don't hate me too much. **Warnings apply as always, but this chapter isn't too bad.**

**Pleaaaasseee please please review! It makes me so insanely happy! I need some happy : )**

**J.K Rowling own all. Title from: "We Need To Eat" By Kent (Amazing amazing song. Go listen to it!)**

**Chapter Seven: I'll Feed On Your Breath**

It's two a.m and the stars look like glittering tears on the navy blanket of the sky.

The humid air is still and silent and heavy and warm

And the tangibility of the heat is still a strange sensation to Harry.

The magically enlarged court yard of Grimmauld Place is littered with discarded Butterbeer and Firewhiskey bottles and chocolate and crumb smeared plates and utensils

Sagging red and green and blue and orange streamers are strung across the high walls which entrap the space and one side of the banner which bears the legend

"Happy Birthday Harry

Welcome Home!"

Has peeled off the wall and reaches toward the ground.

Despite the food filling his belly, Harry feels hollow.

Despite the warmth in the air he trembles.

There is something lacking and he cannot name it

But it's absence makes his heart beat too fast makes him skittish and panicked and fearful

He feels like a mouse dancing before a wide-mouthed snake

Like this is it

This is everything

And he cannot escape

It's a restless melancholy that even guarded, loving silver eyes cannot quite displace

That trembling, long fingered, yearned-for hands cannot quite soothe away.

He has his family back

He has his Draco back

But he has lost a part of himself in losing his disease

And the urge to do thousands of crunches

To run laps til he passes out

To purge his body of food

To gouge gorgeous holes in his flesh

Is so beautifully tempting it takes his breath away

And he has to physically force himself to go back to bed and try to sleep

But he has to hold onto Draco far more tightly than he would like to stop the shaking.

And summer is glorious and the days stretch out timelessly

And time passes oh so slowly when you dread nor anticipate a thing.

There is simply warm sunlight and lazy days in bed and toast crumbs in the sheets and sated smiles

There is raucous laughter around the kitchen table as the Weasley's and Hermione and Draco and Harry and on one memorable occasion, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, gather round and eat and talk until the early hours of the morning.

And Harry pretends not to notice Draco's fidgeting or frequent bathroom trips. Pretends he cannot smell the faint scent of vomit beneath the minty-fresh cleaning charms Draco uses.

He simply wordlessly leans into Draco and tries not to envy him.

And in the early hours of the morning before dawn cuts the sky to pieces, he nips Draco's prominent collarbones, and traces the blue lace-like pattern his veins make on his thighs. Harry sucks and nibbles his prominent ribs and hip bones and sucks on his neck, hard enough to bruise. He is angry and spiteful and envious and though he fears crushing Draco beneath his monstrous weight when they make love (though that seems to genteel for their raw, animalistic passions)

Nothing would ever be able to make him stop worshipping the boy writhing beneath him

And Harry finds it funny that Draco likes bleeding

As much as he does.

And August is faltering and the nights hold a hint of chill now

And Draco shivers more now and Draco hogs the blankets and Harry tasted blood on his lips after one of Draco's increasingly frequent bathroom trips.

And Harry is maintaining 133 pounds and the Healers still visit twice a week, for one week more.

Then it will be weekly for a month

Then monthly for a year.

And Harry won't admit it but he is planning

And at night he has started sneaking out of bed

To run laps around the courtyard until the stars start to fade from the sky.

And Draco is becoming withdrawn but he still smiles for Harry

Those unicorn blood eyes still glow when they lie in bed together, wrapped around each other and breathing in the scent of the other's skin

Like they need each other to survive

And the dinners with the hordes turn weekly instead of nightly as September draws closer and reality returns.

And when it's just them Harry makes them vegetable soup and serves it with a single slice of wholegrain bread

And pretends he just has a craving.

But Draco knows the truth

And sends him grateful looks after every bowlful.

Draco doesn't need to visit the bathroom after a 300 calorie meal.

And though they barely speak any more

Their nights are calmer and they stroke and soothe and trace each others skin

And silently say

"I love you"

And September slinks away and Harry thinks thank God they are neither of them poor

Because he couldn't face a world of 9-5 and a stupid office job

Not when Draco is his to touch and love and he can finally start restricting again now the Healers aren't watching his every move.

A week of mild restriction

No meat, no sugar, and only light dairy

And Harry is down three pounds

And Draco says nothing pretends he sees nothing

But Harry catches him smiling as he sees the assessing way Harry looks at food before putting it down and walking away.

It's a world of pretend they inhabit

A world of pretty masks and glittering facades.

And oh these Slytherins they know how to play this game.

And Harry is more and more proving

How very well he could have done in the kingdom of snakes.

Halloween and the air turns biting and Harry and Draco are meant to be attending Ron and Hermione's Halloween party.

But Draco's eyes are puffy and there is blood staining his pretty pink lips and he hasn't stopped shaking and Harry is for the first time

Truly scared.

So he feeds Draco vegetable broth and casts healing spells for the abrasions on his knuckes and the tearing in his oesophagus, the acidic corrosion in his stomach

He forces nutrient and calming potions down Draco's slender swan like throat

And ignores his weak protests.

He is aware he is doing to Draco what _they _did to him and so he murmurs

"Just heal

I'm not asking you to stop

But I will not let this kill you.

I love you

I'm sorry

I'm sorry

I'm sorry"

And the re-awakened snake calls him

_Selfish_

And his ghosts watch his administrations in rapt fascination

They tell him he will

_Kill_

_Fail_

_Destroy_

_Ruin_

Draco

Just like he did them.

But Draco's sweaty, trembling hand is clutching at Harry desperately and his chapped lips say only his name and for Harry that is enough

_For now._

November breaks and Harry weighs

125 pounds and Draco is smiling and his lips taste like mint and honey

And not like blood

And though he still bears the faint smell of vomit on occasion

He is temporarily frightened enough to ease off.

And Harry doesn't eat eggs any more and has cut back on carbs.

And he doesn't need chocolate or sweets or sugar when Draco sneaks them

Secretly

Ashamedly

Like he is terrified Harry will leave him if he sees him binge.

Harry however likes seeing the former Ice Prince lose control

Loves the residual sweetness on Draco's tongue

The cotton candy warmth of Draco's mouth is even more addicting now

And the air turns cold and at night, their warmth makes the air steam.

Harry is restricting permanently now

Just above

Starvation

850 calories a day

400 crunches

300 star jumps

200 squats

And an hours walk

And 4 cups of coffee

And Draco smiles and smirks and bites at Harry's fingers as they begin to tremble once more

But he doesn't say a word

120 pounds and Harry blocks his Floo

Tells 'Mione and Ron he's been having problems with the media

And hides his once more shrinking frame

Behind a heavy winter clothes

He says he and Draco are thinking of moving

That this house is too haunted

And they seem to agree.

As does Draco

Who looks at him with moonlight eyes and whispers wickedly

"Why not?

It might be nice to

Escape

For a while.

And you know they'll start to notice

Soon."

It's the first time he's mentioned Harry's weight since

Well,

Forever.

And Harry knows he is right.

So they pack their things with a wave of their wand and Apparate to Malfoy Mannor

So Draco can tell his imprisoned Mother

(who he still corresponds with daily and visits weekly, though Harry has never summoned up his courage to go with him)

He will be gone for a while.

And Narcissa assesses them both with Arctic blue eyes

Notes the way their trembling fingers intertwine

And the way their eyes light up as each look at the other.

She rakes her eyes over their bony frames and raises one perfect eyebrow

Before nodding her regal consent.

But when they turn to leave her eyes seem to melt to the colour of the summer sky

And her gaze fills with worry

For she recognizes something in her beloved Draco and his lover

And it fills her with a nameless familiar fear.

And so Harry and Draco move to a poorer part of London

Into a rotting apartment they have to layer with warming spells so their bones do not freeze and snap.

They have a mattress on the floor and pile it high with cushions and blankets.

They make their little slice of Heaven-Hell unplottable, so no one will disturb them

And send the occasional letter so no one will worry.

And in the grimy darkness Harry's ghosts come alive

And he is sure he is able to see their shadows on the dirt encrusted ceiling.

They whisper and moan and cackle and cajole and Harry is shrinking and hating them hating himself once more.

And he weighs

115

110

And the New Year breaks and Draco dreams beside him

And Harry thinks maybe this is

Peace.

For the world is as it should be

As it's a familiar perfect hateful horrible entrancing transcendent

_Starving_

Hell inside his head once more.


	8. Chapter 8

*A/N*

Sooo this kinda came out before I could stop it and I figured I may as well post it now cause the other Chapter I posted before was a little short…So, one more chapter after *this* one. Final chap will be longer, promise! Stuff will actually happen (shock!) Haha.

Warnings, blah blah as always. Though this is pretty mild. Please review! And thanks to everyone who has! Love you guys!

**J.K Rowling own all. As we know. She is wonderful and I'm so jealous…Title is a bit random but it's from "4st 7lbs" Manic Street Preachers**

**Chapter Eight: I Can Change, My Cocoon Shedding…**

The freezing winter air tastes like metal and smoke.

At night sirens wail down the street

And Muggles cry out in hoarse, desperate voices

Begging the world for some lost hope, one last chance that the world refuses to give.

And Harry and Draco co-exist in perfect harmony and their world is filled with peace

Even if it can't quite be called joy.

There is peace to be found in the familiar

Even if it is simply a familiar horror.

They make love only ever at night for Draco fears Harry will see his body and run

He finds shame in his binging his lack of

Control

And Harry is secretly relieved

Because secretly, though Draco still call him beautiful he no longer believes him.

Harry traces the words

I

Love

You

On Draco's hips with his tongue

And Draco claims the dip in Harry's lower back

Tracing the word

Mine

Mine

Mine

Over and over again with his brittle nails and cool fingertips.

And their passion for each other

Is as all consuming as their passion for their respective diseases

And as the world is covered in a flurry of fat white snow flake and icy crystals

They let everything but the other

And the hunger

Slip away

Unnoticed

And without regret.

And Harry thinks

This is what it's like to be in love.

That everything else ceases to matter.

And he thinks how lucky he is

To be in love with Draco

And the snake-like sickness

And to be loved in return.

And though one

Or both

Will kill him

That this young love first love

Is also

Last love

He thinks how wonderful it is

To have ever known love at all.

And the empty hollow hunger makes everything burn that much brighter

Starlight becomes blinding

And each emotion

Is overwhelming

So that Harry and Draco's icy tears mingle when they make love

And they laugh as they kiss

And the dance of their tongues seems to go on forever

And it feeds the monsters

Even as it sates them.

Their hip bones ache as they slam into each other

And sometimes the cold saps their strength so that all that are able to do is lie in bed together, cocooned in a mountain of blankets and heating spells,

And dream of a future they so desperately wish to grab, that they long for with such devotion they can almost taste the honey-ash of it on their intertwined tongues.

But it is a future

Of happiness and health and fulfillment and purpose and wholeness

That the two guilt ridden scar covered damaged boys

Know will never be theirs.

And sometimes they seem to be becoming one person.

So much so that Harry thinks he can feel his own throat burn after Draco vomits

And Draco's hands begin to tremble after Harry consumes his 8th cup of coffee.

And the sirens scream and the red and blue lights flash on the walls

And though it's not the lullaby laughter Harry still craves

Or the Lily-eyes-_avada-kedavra_ light

It's close enough

And Harry can dream.

His ghosts are frozen in his bones and their screams are muffled

But Harry knows they're there

Waiting to be thawed by the spring.

And the snake hisses in time to Harry's heart beat

And it's syllabant insults are strangely soothing

Like silver eyes

And glowing green.

105

100

95

The numbers creep down like the numbers on the thermostat.

And Harry's flesh disappears and Draco is enraptured

Though there is terror in his eyes.

And Harry is proud

Because he is undoing the work the Healer's did

Dismantling the fleshy prison they put him in.

He

And he alone is in control

And as his bones begin to shine through his parchment skin

He feels like he's coming home.


	9. Chapter 9

*Author's Note- PLEASE READ!*

So, this is it. The final ever chapter of Hero Like Me and that makes me very sad and very relieved. (But OMG my OCD hates me for ending on 9, not 10…)I hated being mean to them, because I really do love them- PROMISE! But it was kind of like I had no control over this fic. It was writing itself and I was just the conduit. In defense of my ending, can I just say I WARNED YOU! I knew the ending before I knew anything else and I tried to prepare you as best I could… (But note the warnings and note what's missing as much as what's there, m'kay?) Oh and if you want to get more on Draco's p.o.v or see what happens after, I will be updating Follow You Down soon!

**Mostly I wanted to say a huge, insanely squealy THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUUUUU to everyone who read, alerted and reviewed this fic. Especially to all the reviewers: Srienia, and B. and But an especially huge thank you to these reviwers: HeidiFox, LukeandLorelai Brucas Fan and Red Sonja of the North because their reviews seriously were amazing and kept me going. :,D THANKYOU! I cannot say it enough. 3**

**WARNINGS: SELF HARM, BULIMIA AND ANOREXIA TRIGGERS, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, BASHING OF EVERY POSSIBLE BELOVED CHARACTER AND GENERAL ANGSTINESS. Oh and slash, lol. **

**J.K ROWLING THE AMAZING FANTASTIC WONDOROUS AWE-INSPIRING OWNS ALL. I'm just being a bitch haha. Title is from "4st 7lbs" by Manic Street Preachers. Quote is included just cause. **

**Chapter Nine: Epilogue Of Youth**

"**Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."**

**Clarence Darrow**

Harry wakes one morning and knows it is spring. He can taste the scent of the thawing, rain soaked earth in the air. Can taste the no longer watery sun. He fancies he can smell the green shoots of new grass poking up through the cracks in the sidewalk outside his apartment. Can smell the scent of flesh and blood thawing and warming as it is exposed to the glimmering golden light. As the shackles of a long, cold winter are slowly melted away.

Not his blood though.

And not Draco's.

They will remain smothered in layers as their starving bodies try to keep-

Draco.

Draco. That's what's missing, why Harry fancies he can smell the world-

Because there is no cotton-candy-chocolate-bitter-bile-honey-sweet-musky-silver-metal-shine-glimmer-blood-hope

Draco lying in bed beside him, with his hair all mussed and his sweet sick skin filling Harry's nose with the scent of

Love and

Disease.

Harry sits up in bed so fast his head spins and his empty stomach lurches.

Draco is missing, where is Draco Draco Draco is he hurt, bathroom tiles bleeding bile soaked oesophogus ruptured dying dead oh Gods Draco-

And Harry is half way across the room before his merry-go-round brain realizes there is a note on Draco's pillow.

He approaches it slowly, trembling like a new a new born foal and his breath is harsh and ragged and far too loud in the dingy apartment, with the scattered and strange shadows caused by the spring sun and decades old dirt.

Harry's vision is twisted, blurry and his heart is murmuring a melody comprised of Draco's name and what if what if what's wrong oh gods oh gods Draacoo…?

And even the snake is shocked into silence because there are rules to this game and rules mean constancies and one of those is Draco, here, there, now, with, always, Draco.

And Harry's eyes feel like they're burning bleeding and he drops the note three times before his traitorous hands and eyes co-operate enough to let him read it.

_Harry-_

_Dear Harry, perfect Harry, hateful Harry, damaged Harry, beautiful, fucked up, tortured, torturing Harry._

_Lover Harry, enemy Harry, Saviour Harry, golden boy Harry, sick, sweet, diseased Harry._

_Do not panic. I am not dead. And I will be back I just don't know_

_When._

_Do you remember when I left you in St. Mungo's. all alone, trapped with your disease and the fruitless, pointless, pathetic administrations of the_

"_Healers"?_

_Of course you do. How you must have hated me for doing that. I'm sorry._

_More so because I know how much it must have caused you to_

_Despise yourself. _

_And I never told you why, did I? I'm sorry_

_So sorry_

_It seems as I write this, I have so much to answer for._

_I love you, gods how I love you and I am imploring you do not ever forget that. I'm on my knees begging you to remember that._

_I _

_Love_

_You._

_And though I guess the position has lost much significance. It seems I've been on my knees far too often since I fell for, with, you._

_I want to stay. The world is warming, I can feel it, almost. See it in the way the light dances through the air. But my eyes are so blurry now and sometimes everything seems grey and strange and spots thread their way into my vision. So maybe it is still winter after all. I want a spring with you. Want summer. Want to be able to go into Hyde park and eat ice-cream and hold hands and kiss and make faces at anyone who disapproves. I want to eat dinner with my mother and your, well family, the Weasely's, Granger, what else could I call them? But that's impossible, isn't it love? _

_I have not left because I am asking _you_ to get better_

_(Though I must admit, as beautiful as you are, you are starting to scare me. Remember, you can't die, you promised you wouldn't, Gods if you knew what you do to me-)_

_I am making _

_Me_

_Get better._

_Harry you healed me once and that was fine for a while. But I need to heal myself_

_At least, temporarily. _

_And my mother needs me. And I need to find _

_Myself. _

_I will be back. Jus like last time._

_And last time, (see, I said I would tell you, and Malfoy's are true to their words) I left because staying would destroy you, love. Seeing me worsen, as you were forced to heal. It would have caused pain and conflict and nothing good would have come of it. _

_We would have hated each other in a week._

_And the same thing will happen if I stay now. _

_If I stay and try to heal whilst you do not I wouldn't last a day before falling into my old habits._

_And I can't ask you to heal, not for me. _

_I know I'm not enough to kill the demons._

_Though I wish so desperately I could be._

_I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you_

_And this isn't forever, there's no such thing as forever but I'll be back I promise._

_Please wait for me._

_Please do not die._

_Please hold on, for me for me for me._

_I love you, always._

_Yours, only yours, forever and ever- Draco._

And Harry can do nothing but stare for endless moments as his hungry, haunted mind tries to comprehend what he has just read. He re-reads the letter, once, twice, ten times and it's not making sense Draco left Draco can't leave no, he needs Draco Draco-

And then Harry is rushing across the room, falling, crawling as his body rebels against the shock.

And then he's sprawled in from of the grimy toilet on his knees like a mockery of being at prayer and he's heaving retching gagging and his throat is

Burning it burns oh god Draco

And he is heaving up stomach acid and he tastes something metallic and he realizes he has bit straight through his lip trying to hold in his screams, his sobs and there is blood and bile dripping down he's chin and down his throat and he thinks he might be crying maybe

Though hero's they don't cry

_Stop crying you useless fuck stop crying tears won't bring him back you useless fat piece of shit-_

And the ghosts are cackling

_We told you so _

_Told you so told you_

_That you would break him destroy him hurt him kill him like you _

_Murdered us_

_He hates you he hates you he hates you you have never been enough_

_You will never be enough_

_Fat piece of shit_

_Useless_

_Hate you_

_He hates you_

_He left you everyone leaves you don't you ever wonder why we left you_

_They left you he left you they hate you everyone hates you_

_Fat shit ugly weak some hero ugly fat loser despicable monster hate you ugly fat weak shit-_

And Harry can't tell what the snake is saying and what the ghosts are saying and what he is telling to himself but everyone is screaming abuse in his head and he's still puking up blood and bile and tears and everything hurts and he feels like inside him is broken and

_DRACO IS GONE YOU DROVE HIM AWAY YOU FAT FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT_

_LOSER_

_ARSEHOLE_

_MONSTER_

_PIECE OF SHIT SCUM WORTHLESS DEGENERATE MISERABLE WEAK WEAK WEAK UGLY FAT WHO COULD EVER WANT_

_**YOU?**_

And he's crying in earnest and maybe he is screaming there's blood dripping onto his clothes and he can't tell where it's coming from anymore and Harry isn't enough to save Draco?

But Harry's the hero

Or maybe he never was a hero

Maybe the war never happened like he thought it did and Harry never did anything good in his entire fucking life.

And he's so cold he can't stop shaking and his hunger is roaring at him he's so empty it aches and he burns and he longs and he's going to implode if he doesn't let this pressure out.

And he's conjured a familiar looking blade and tries not to think of Draco's eyes

As they confessed and begged and blamed in a bathroom in the moonlight

As they stared at Dumbledore, ill and old and ripe for the plucking

As they glared at him filled with a vicious desperate hate as those perfect lips began to mouth the word_ "Cruci-"_

As Draco mocked him and taunted him and hated him a thousand times

As he called Hermione a Mudblood or called Ron a blood-traitor.

The look in his eyes on the first day they met as he told Harry he didn't think they "Should let the other sort in…"

And the hurt and hate and contempt in those glittering grey silver moonlight smoke mirror magic eyes as Harry rejected in his hand.

And Harry needs that colour to

Dispappear

He needs the blade to be a brilliant, ruby red

All glistening and gleaming and glowing and distinctly

_Gryffindor_

And he forgets that Draco begged him not to die

Forgets he himself has not wanted to die

That hero's are strong and should not die

And instead he plunges the handle of the knife into his prominent ribs, depp enough so he can feel the hilt of the knife as it presses against his bones.

And then he pulls it out and gouges holes in his thighs

Carves up his wrists, his arms, his calves, his stomach, his palms.

And though every thing is red red red blood glistening gleaming

Stinking up his nostrils with it's sickening metallic scent

All Harry sees is silver.

Silver soft and glowing as they smile at Harry across the crowded Great Hall

Sleepy and sated as they lie curled around the other after making love for hours

Predatory and sinful as Draco whispers in syllabant tones all he intends to do to Harry

Pliant and playful as Harry traps Draco's body beneath his.

Fearful and hopeful as Draco held out his hand, desperate even then to make the Boy Who Lived notice him, and care.

Harry gasps and the sound is frightful

A gurgling wet choking sound as Harry Potter, Golden Boy, Saviour

Boy Who Fucking Lived

Chokes to death on his own blood.

Harry can't see and he thinks by rights he should be dead by now.

He thinks this much blood loss can't be good and oh god it hurts-

Mum, help Draco, Draco-

But he is all he has and maybe there is a reason Harry was chosen after all because he can feel his magic pumping through him, burning as it tries to repair and Harry grasps the air, floor blindly trying to find his wand, sending the thought _Accio wand-_ through every fibre of his dying being-

And finally grabs it and chokes out healing spells through a garbled voice and woozy head and hopes they're doing something because he doesn't know what to do and everything is going dark-

And he catches a flash of a shocked face and bushy hair and then everything turns black.

The first thing Harry notices when he wakes is that the pillow his face is pressed into still smells like cotton candy and the musky smell of Draco's skin.

The second is that sitting in two cozy emerald green (and obviously conjured) armchairs, are none other than Ginny Weasely and Hermione Granger.

The third is that he feels like shit and his tiny apartment looks like it's had a hurricane through it.

And then he remembers and groans, though all he is rewarded with for his efforts is a stinging pain through his abused throat and looks of disapproval from Hermione and Ginny.

Who, he realizes a second later, are not meant to be in his freaking apartment!

Hermione glares at him as she stands and walks over to him, carrying a steaming bowl of what smells like French Onion soup.

Seeing that Harry is about to protest, she tells him coldly: "Draco said we were to check in on you and look after you if anything happened while he was away. What happened last night definitely constitutes "something happening" and if you, you stupid, bloody, over dramatic, temperamental, freaking _Gryffindor_ do not acquiesce to eating this soup, I will have absolutely no qualms about forcing it down your stupid throat!"

And Harry is silent because Hermione looks like she is about to pour the steaming soup on his lap if dares protest and besides, there are tears in her cinnamon eyes and Draco said so.

He eats in silence, Hermione watching every bite and Ginny alternating between glaring at him and pulling faces.

When he's done, Hermione takes the bowl and sighs turning away, before throwing her arms around him and near-smothering him with her bushy hair.

"We thought you were dead! It took longer than we thought to get in, though Draco had given us the directions to unlocking the wards, it took so long and we heard screaming and banging and when we finally got in you were so still and you looked dead and oh god, oh my fucking gods, Harry, we thought we'd lost you-"

And here she leans back to slap him full on the face, her pretty features incandescent with rage.

"If you ever dare do something as completely idiotic as that again, I swear to god I will kill you! You bloody idiot, he said he was coming back! He will come back and you go and act like the world has ended! You idiot!" And she's crying again and all Harry can do is rub her back and murmur "I'm fine Mione, I'm fine, Mione, it's ok, I'm fine, I love you, I'm fine…"

And Ginny is shaking her head and smiling as she cries and Harry beckons her over and they stay, huddled together, each terrified at what almost happened, for the longest time.

And Harry is not allowed to remain unsupervised. So Ginny who is apparently in between both jobs and boyfriends moves in to what she describes as "the shit hole".

And they force Harry to maintain a diet above that of almost starvation

And Harry sneaks in exercises at night when Ginny is asleep and increases and maintains his weight at 95 perfect horrible too many pounds and waits for Draco to come home.

And sometimes, when a babbling Ginny is grating on his used-to-silver-silence-nerves or Ron is making snide comments about Draco in Harry's hearing or Hermione is fretting

Harry snaps

And screams at them all that they're a bunch of interfering fucks who can't leave well enough alone and he HATES them and can they just fuck off and leave him alone like Draco that fucking utter bastard Malfoy did because

_Everyone leaves_

And obviously they don't love him they just don't want to be responsible for the Golden Boy's death.

And then they'll leave for an hour or two because they have learnt if they don't, things get broken and Harry will not speak to them for days.

And in that time Harry will do crunches and squats and star jumps til his bones ache and he will trace Draco's name on his skin, ever so faintly with a razor blade and he will let his ghosts scream and his snake hiss and then he will be calm.

And it's been four months and Draco has not yet returned.

And summer is passing all golden and slow

And Harry has calmed, returned to his icy façade and convinced them all to leave him alone for the most part.

And the snake hisses

_Burden_

_Weak _

_Scum_

_They hate you_

_He hates you _

_They know what you are_

_Murderer_

_Monster_

_Fat ugly burden_

_You should let them go_

_Move far away and just let go…_

And the ghosts chastise him

Because is this how he treats his

_Family?_

_All you do is hurt those you love you kill us you abuse us you drive us away leave us no choice but to hate you…_

He wonders what Hermione would say if she knew of the beloved monsters he hears in his head.

He is hovering at 92 pounds and he wants to starve needs the hollow hell but he can't not yet not yet.

And Draco needs to come home because his pillow doesn't smell right anymore

And Harry's sticky cold nights are endless without him.

July melts into August. Harry is 20 now and he is sick of being baby-sat.

And he needs Draco because without Draco all he has is the disease and his family can't make him feel

Whole

Like Draco and the snake can.

And he spends his lonely nights wishing on starlight

For Draco Draco my Draco to come home.

And Harry is sorry for everything he has ever done.

Pretends to himself he would've tried not to restrict in front of Draco

(Though he knows he is a _liar _at 90 pounds and melting trickling

D

O

W

N)

And Ginny doesn't babble so much anymore and Hermione doesn't fret and Ron's stopped coming, unable to deal with his sad-eyed, slumped once best friend. At 5 months they think Draco isn't coming home

But Harry hopes has to hope because otherwise his days are endless and Technicolor-fake bright burning lonely and all he wants is his silver smoke gleaming moonlight unicorn hope hate silver gleam bright glow starlight moonlight soft sweet silver silver silver smoke fog metal gleam

Draco.

And it's midnight and the nights are chilly now

6 months dead and 87 pounds and no Draco and it's getting so cold in Harry's head and his bones and his heart.

And then he hears a tapping at the window and sees a beautiful, grey owl, that seems so strange and perfect in the moonlight.

Harry jumps up though the action makes his head swim, and ruses to let the majestic owl in

And tires to ignore the stab of pain at the thought of his beautiful, beloved Hedwig.

And the bird carries a cream coloured not that bears only the words, in Draco's elegant scrawl:

"_Can I come home?"_

And Harry writes back a single word:

"_Always."_

When Harry sleeps that night he dreams of maniacal laughter and soothing hisses. He dreams of a moonlit forest that glows faintly green and he sees unicorn blood pooling and shimmering on the ground. And he looks at it, and it morphs into the Mirror Of Erised and all Harry sees when he gazes into it, is his and Draco's hands intertwined.

And when Draco returns, they do not speak, though Draco seems to be murmuring "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" into Harry's neck as they feverishly embrace.

And it is Draco who has to be gentle now, careful not to break Harry's skeletal frame.

And when they undress it is in moonlight and Harry cannot help but stare at Draco's filled out perfect frame. His collar bone still gleams and Harry can see his shoulder blades when he moves, still like angel wings but no longer haunting.

The night before Draco left, Harry remembers, Draco looked like a battered and beaten moth that had tried to fly toward the light one too many times and was paying the price.

His heartbeat fluttered in his chest when they made love and his hands constantly trembled, like the junkies who shook and begged on the streets outside their door.

His beautiful hair had turned lank, his sweet breath sour and his eyes were the colour of smoothed beach pebbles, all dull and grey and lifeless.

And now he looks like an Arctic fox

All snow white and sleek and strong and oh-so-beautiful

With eyes like light refracting

Diamonds.

As they make love, slow and sweet and deliberate

There is such profound sorrow intermingled with the joy.

And they know something has died

Was murdered

_Murderer_

When Draco chose to leave to heal

If only temporarily

And Harry stayed behind.

It is their choices that make the difference to them

Unlike how their powerlessness makes a difference to the rest of the god-damn world.

And oh it's a terrible truth that part of Harry's joy at having his diamond his dragon his Draco back

_Home_

Is that he can start starving and losing, rapidly, quickly, _yes, _once more.

And Harry wonders how he ever could have doubted Draco.

And Harry thinks maybe he does hate Draco, just a bit.

Not for the act of leaving, but for the act of healing.

Of _letting_ himself heal when Harry cannot.

Draco, Harry thinks, has always been

_Stronger_

But then Harry feels Draco's icy tears on his neck as Draco sobs out his release into Harry's skin.

And he feels Draco's blunt nails tracing

_Mine I love you I'm sorry missed you love you mine mine mine_

Into the dip in Harry's back

And he smells the very faint smell of vomit on Draco's cotton candy breath, and wonders how healed he is.

For Harry of all people knows that you can fix the body but that won't kill this disease.

And he thinks of winning wars by surrendering battles

And the difference between acquiescence and complicity.

And Harry tries to breathe in Draco's skin

And knows with a certainty, an accepting lack of hope

That they will never be free.

And isn't that wonderful?

And he can no longer tell how much time has passed because he's always so cold and as he no longer yearns for Draco, he has no way of measuring the time.

And Hermione and Ginny and Ron don't come by much any more. Though they write, occasionally, sometimes.

They have lives and Harry and Draco have each other.

And Harry starts starving again and it is bliss at 80 pounds.

And Draco resists for the most part, tries not to binge and purge and hate and harm.

But occasionally he can't help it.

And when he does he smiles at Harry, and there is fear and love and hope and sadness in those silver eyes of his.

And Harry thinks

They can do this.

They can live like this

Forever and ever and ever and ever.

Though forever doesn't exist.

He and Draco walk the streets together now, unafraid and needing the sky.

Because sometimes, after being apart for so long

The other is too much

And not enough

So they walk among the refuse of society

The junkies the whores the most down and out artists the filth of society

And they walk in silence, the two pretty hungry boys invisible here.

No wizards or witches to care

And the Muggles here, with their heads only just sticking out of their graves, do not, cannot see.

And it's a perfect hell.

And it must be winter because it's snowing again and where does the time go to die?

And Draco purges become more frequent, as he tries to tame the ghosts that ride in his head.

And Harry once more begins to carve patterns in his stomach

Trying to kill the ghosts that dance in his bones.

And he wonders how many ghosts he and Draco share.

But he knows better than to ask.

And what a horrible fascinating game it is that they play.

And the world is cold and Harry hungers for it,

Wants to gobble it up and let it cut him into pieces.

He is starving and oh so sick now.

And he can barely walk but he still runs or does crunches and squats until dawn.

And he's got so much caffeine in his system he thinks he could fly.

And Draco takes up smoking because he heard some Muggles say it keeps weight down.

And their apartment fills with smoke and becomes stuffy and smells like sickness.

And the smoke looks like dragons like snakes like lions and tigers and unicorns.

And Harry still shrinks

And is at 100 calories three times a week and 75 pounds now.

And Draco watches and wonders and waits.

Wishing he could intervene; knowing he can't.

And Harry doesn't think he wants to

Die

But he doesn't know how

Or why

To live

Beyond a pair of tarnished silver eyes that still manage to dimly

Glow

When they light upon Harry's emaciated face

Beyond a bony body that wraps itself around him at night like a python that never ever wants to let go.

He doesn't eat enough to live.

But he eats too much to die.

He eats just enough to continually prolong the

Inevitable

And he never wants to stop.

He's living off the magic and the caffeine. He's living off the euphoric frenzy of starvation.

He's dancing on the precipiece and he doesn't know isn't quite sure which way he wants to fall.

And the ghosts have trickled out of his bones and they roam his blood stream and his sluggish pulse beats to the sound of their mockery.

He can't imagine killing them now. They've been far too long a part of him

(And a minute sane part of him knows he can't kill them anyway. How do you kill something that doesn't exist? How do you kill something

When it's all in your head?)

And the snake in his head has slithered into his spine and sometime's it's so heavy he feels like it has grown to the size of a basilisk

Its heavy head rests at the base of his skull and its fangs dig into the base of his neck.

And it's a comfort of a kind

Even if he can't stand straight anymore.

And the half hearted dreams they once told him to dream

Have turned to ashes and

Blown away in the breeze.

Draco starts to beg him not to stop not to die with a once more bloody mouth that tastes like chocolate and bitter bile.

And he thinks he would do anything for that razor tongue and those bony loving hands.

And so he lives each day as it comes.

At 70 pounds he is a walking skeleton

At 65 he is a medical magical marvel and he hovers there above the point of no return never ever return

And now, he is finally

I

N

V

I

S

I

B

L

E

Living on the degenerate edge of society.

And maybe he is the ghost now. For the ghosts in his skin are far more corporeal than he has ever been.

Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived and Died and never found his way back home, not quite.

The boy who was only ever what they told him he was.

He was a

Manifestation

Of their ideals. And without them he turns to

Dust.

But Draco is still smiling

And it's sunset again

Or maybe even dawn.

And he'll keep going til he no longer can.

Til the ghosts take him away

And he'll die

When he dies

If you even can die twice

With the taste of blood and cotton candy on his tongue

And the image of those beautiful quicksilver eyes fixed firmly in his mind.

*A/N*

65 pounds is 29.55 kilos. I chose this weight deliberately as it's just above the weigh at which death is medically unavoidable (28.57 kg, 4st 7lbs) So I figured magic, who knows? It's deliberately ambiguous, and I hope you don't hate me too much for it. I couldn't change the ending once I wrote it, no matter how much I wanted to. Thank you for reading. Please review, just one last time! :)

Echo xoxo


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